Receipt and recipe are historical relatives. Both go back to the Latin verb recipere, meaning to receive or to take.
In older English and French forms, the word that became receipt did not consistently include a p. Later, scholars and scribes reshaped the spelling to make its Latin origin more visible. That is why modern English has a silent p in receipt.
Recipe comes from the same root but followed a different path in pronunciation. In old medical and cooking instructions, recipe was used like a command meaning take. Over time, it became the noun we use today for cooking directions.
- receipt: proof that something was received or paid for
- recipe: instructions for preparing food or medicine
So the two words look and sound different now, but they are connected by the same basic idea: taking or receiving something.
