Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
recipe, receipt (nn.)
(pronounced RES-i-pee and ri-SEET, respectively) mean the same thing: originally they were the instructions and lists of ingredients for making and administering medicines, but they have long since come to mean “the instructions for preparing food and drink.” Recipe is now much more frequently used in this sense than is receipt, which today has an old-fashioned sound and is probably best labeled archaic. Recipe also has considerable Standard figurative use today, meaning “a way of accomplishing something,” as in His recipe for success is hard work plus more hard work.
