receive

Multiple Entries:
  receive    deserts  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
receive/rɪˈsiːv/

▶verb

• 1 be given, presented with, or paid.

  ■ take delivery of.

  ■ consent to hear (an oath or confession).

  ■ buy or accept (goods known to be stolen).

• 2 suffer, experience, or be subject to.

  ■ respond to in a specified way: her first novel was well received.

  ■ meet with (a specified reaction).

  ■ (as adj. received) widely accepted as authoritative or true.

• 3 form (an idea or impression) from an experience.

• 4 greet or welcome formally.

  ■ be visited by.

  ■ admit as a member.

• 5 detect or pick up (broadcast signals).

• 6 serve as a receptacle for.

• 7 (in tennis and similar games) be the player to whom the server serves (the ball).

– phrases
be at (or on) the receiving end informal be subjected to something unpleasant.

– origin ME: from Anglo-Norman Fr. receivre, based on L. recipere, from re- ‘back’ + capere ‘take’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
deserts /dɪˈzəːts/

▶plural noun (often in phr. get (or receive) one's just deserts) what a person deserves with regard to reward or (more usually) punishment.

– origin ME: via OFr. from deservir (see deserve).