use-icon

HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY

To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key.

Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window.

guide to the dictionary

use-icon

THE USAGE PANEL

The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.

The Panelists

open-icon

AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP

The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android.

scroll-icon

THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG

The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more.

100-words-icon

See word lists from the best-selling 100 Words Series!

Find out more!

open-icon

INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES?

Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com

re·cip·ro·cal (rĭ-sĭprə-kəl)
Share:
adj.
1. Done, given, felt, or owed in return: a reciprocal invitation to lunch.
2. Existing, experienced, or done on both sides: reciprocal agreements between nations; reciprocal admiration between friends.
3. Grammar Expressing mutual action or relationship. Used of some verbs and compound pronouns.
4. Mathematics Of or relating to the reciprocal of a quantity.
5. Physiology Of or relating to a neuromuscular phenomenon in which the excitation of one group of muscles is accompanied by the inhibition of another.
6. Genetics Of or designating a pair of crosses in which the male or female parent in one cross is of the same genotype or phenotype as the complementary female or male parent in the other cross.
n.
1. Something that is reciprocal to something else.
2. Mathematics A number related to another in such a way that when multiplied together their product is 1. For example, the reciprocal of 7 is 1/7 ; the reciprocal of 2/3 is 3/2 .

[From Latin reciprocus, alternating; see per1 in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]

re·cipro·cali·ty (-kălĭ-tē), re·cipro·cal·ness (-kəl-nĭs) n.
re·cipro·cal·ly adv.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.