receivable

receivable — adjective

1. describing an amount of money that someone is owed — meaning a customer or clien

1.adjectiveB2
Definition

describing an amount of money that someone is owed — meaning a customer or client has to pay it, but has not done so yet.

Example

Jabari's hardware store reported accounts receivable of fifty thousand dollars last quarter.

postpositive: 'accounts receivable' (standard accounting term)

The audit team reviewed the receivable balance from the previous fiscal year.

prenominal: 'receivable balance'

Common collocations
  • accounts receivable
  • receivable balance
  • receivable amount
  • receivable account
  • receivable payment
Synonyms
  • outstanding

    broader term; can also mean 'excellent' (unrelated sense). In financial contexts, roughly interchangeable but 'outstanding' focuses on the unpaid status rather than who is owed.

  • unpaid

    simpler and more common; less specific because it does not imply the money is expected by a particular person or business.

  • due

    focuses on the deadline; a payment can be due even if it has already been sent. 'Receivable' looks at the same situation from the receiver's side.

Antonyms
  • payable

    money that a person or business owes to someone else — the opposite perspective on the same transaction.

Grammar Patterns

accounts receivable (postpositive)

receivable + noun (prenominal)

Usage Note

Domain is almost exclusively accounting and finance. The adjective appears most often after the noun, especially in the fixed phrase 'accounts receivable' (money owed to a business for goods or services already delivered). Prenominal use (e.g. 'receivable balance', 'receivable amounts') is also standard in business writing. In everyday conversation, speakers typically use 'unpaid' or 'outstanding' instead.

Common Mistakes

I have a receivable payment to make this month.
I have a payment to make this month.
Receivable describes money you expect to receive, not money you need to pay. Use 'payable' for money you owe.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

All three words describe money that has not yet been paid, but they differ in perspective and scope. 'Outstanding' is the broadest — it can refer to any unfinished business (a task, a question) and in financial contexts simply means 'not yet settled,' without specifying who is owed. 'Unpaid' is the most direct and everyday term; it just states that payment has not been made, regardless of expectation. 'Due' centres on the deadline: a payment is due when it must reach the recipient by a certain date, but it may already have been sent. 'Receivable' is the only one that takes the receiver's viewpoint — it describes money that someone expects to collect. In practice, a single invoice can be described as 'receivable' (from the seller's books), 'payable' (from the buyer's), 'outstanding' (generally unpaid), and 'due' (past the deadline), each highlighting a different aspect.

outstanding ↗unpaid ↗due ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • accounts receivable

Etymology

LatinOld FrenchEnglish

Formed from the verb 'receive' (from Old North French 'receivre', Latin 'recipere' — re- 'back' + capere 'to take') plus the suffix '-able', meaning 'able to be received'. The literal sense 'capable of being received' appeared in the 1500s but is now obsolete. The modern accounting sense — 'awaiting payment' — developed in British commercial usage during the 1800s, where 'receivable' became the standard term for money owed but not yet collected.