: generally accepted : common
a healthy skepticism about received explanations—
B. K. Lewalski
B. K. LewalskiExamples of received in a Sentence
Adjective
What was radical thinking in times past has become received wisdom today.
traditionally the received opinion was that, in the event of a divorce, the mother should get custody of the children
Recent Examples on the Web
Alex Vernon
may 27, Literary Hub, 27 May 2025
Democracy spread globally, and with it, challenges to the received idea of the national interest as something determined by autocratic elites, or of military power as the only kind that mattered.
—Margaret MacMillan, The Atlantic, 30 Apr. 2025
Famous Shakespearean actors, like Laurence Olivier or Ian McKellen, often deliver Richard’s lines in received pronunciation, an English accent associated with the middle and upper classes.
—Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 Nov. 2024
Part of what’s important in that time and before is to break these barriers of standard genres — painting and sculpture and stuff like that — and treat them as ordinary objects, questioning the received or accepted technical strategies.
—Adam Bradley, New York Times, 16 May 2024
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Adjective
The review flipped the received wisdom contrasting the untroubled generation of Jones’s war with the troubled one of O’Brien’s.
—Alex Vernon
may 27, Literary Hub, 27 May 2025
Democracy spread globally, and with it, challenges to the received idea of the national interest as something determined by autocratic elites, or of military power as the only kind that mattered.
—Margaret MacMillan, The Atlantic, 30 Apr. 2025
Famous Shakespearean actors, like Laurence Olivier or Ian McKellen, often deliver Richard’s lines in received pronunciation, an English accent associated with the middle and upper classes.
—Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 Nov. 2024
Part of what’s important in that time and before is to break these barriers of standard genres — painting and sculpture and stuff like that — and treat them as ordinary objects, questioning the received or accepted technical strategies.
—Adam Bradley, New York Times, 16 May 2024
See All Example Sentences for received
Cite this Entry
“Received.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/received. Accessed 22 Jul. 2025.
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