About: BC Kumar

BC Kumar, an English Language Teacher, taught in numerous countries including Ethiopia, Oman and India, shares his knowledge and passion for the English Language. Disclaimer: This is a free educational website and all content has been compiled by the author. All copyrights to images and videos belong to their respective owners.

M.P. (member)

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M.P.:

(short form for: ‘Member of Parliament’ & ‘Military Police‘; plural: ‘M.P‘s. or members of parliament)

Egyptian MPs in a parliament session

a person who is elected by the people to represent them in the political law-making body, called ‘parliament’ of that country, especially of the Common Wealth countries;

a member of the House of Commons in the British Parliament;

e.g.

Several Opposition party M.P’s. (members of parliament) have walked out of the session because they did not like the way the terrorist issue was handled by the Ruling party.

An M.P. (Member of Parliament) is elected for a period/term of five years.

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a posse of MPs — Military Police
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Redcap

redcap:

(plural: ‘redcaps‘; pronunciation: ‘red…cap’)

a trio of female redcaps

(in British usage) a military policeman or policewoman; military police;

(in American usage) a porter — a worker who carries passengers’ luggage at an airport or railway station for money,

e.g.

Redcaps are the police officers in the Royal Military Police, and they are called redcaps because they wear redcaps — red-topped peaked caps or red berets.

Most tourists using Amtrak train often find difficult to decide how much to tip the redcaps, the railway porters in red caps.

a redcap with an experience of 40 years, helping a passenger with his luagggage

[For an interesting audio on redcaps, please visit: http://www.bfbs.com/news/england/red-caps-receive-operational-medals-40865.htmlhttp://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080209/lead/lead4.html.]

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Red

 
 

Red:

(plural: ‘Reds‘)

Apart from several other more common meanings/definitions …

the Reds

a person who is a member of a Communist or Socialist system of political party; a communist;

a radical; a revolutionary,

e.g.

Some political analysts fear that the United States of America is now full of Reds, and in no time they may takeover the government.

The Reds use a blood red cloth as their flag to symbolise their ideology — spilling blood to gain what they think is their right.

 
 

Rector

 
 

rector:

(plural: ‘rectors‘; pronunciation: the letter ‘c’ is said with a ‘k’ sound as in “king”)

a rector (Father Timothy Parker, St. James Anglican Church)

(in Christian religion) a priest; a clerk in charge of an area (parish);

(mostly in British usage) the head/principal of certain schools, colleges, etc.;

(in Scottish usage) a high official at a university,

Frances Cairncross, rector, Exeter College — 2004
e.g.

According to Wikipedia, the word ‘rector’ has come from the Latin word regere and rector meaning teacher.

According to Wikipedia, the head of some colleges of Oxford or Cambridge is called a chancellor and in some others the head is called a master or principal, and at a few colleges the head is called a master or warden, but at Lincoln College and Exeter College, the head is called a rector.

Note: According to Wikipedia, ‘rector’ is also found in the names of people in some countries, e.g. David Rector, Kelsey Rector, Rector Finney, etc.

 
 

Recruit

recruit:

(plural: ‘recruits‘; pronunciation: the letter ‘c’ is said with a ‘k’ sound as in “king”)

military recruits

a person who has newly joined the military or the police force;

a newly joined member of a party, organisation, society, etc.;

a trainee; an apprentice; a new comer,

some new recruits with the senior members of a political party
e.g.

More and more young men and women are joining the Army, Navy and the Air Force, and the government is trying to train those new recruits with the latest and more sophisticated weapons.

We think that our party needs more and more recruits to get ourselves ready for the coming elections.

Most recruits leave their training because they find it hard to cope with and the recruiters don’t help them much to understand what is expected of them.

Note 1: ‘Recruiter‘, on the other hand, is a person who selects and joins news members into an organisation or the military.

Note 2: ‘Recruit’ is more commonly used as a verb to mean ‘to select or enroll and join new members’.

Recreant

 
 

recreant:

(plural: ‘recreants‘; pronunciation: the letter ‘c’ is said with a ‘k’ sound as in “king”)

a recreant — the man on the right — being unfaithful — shaking hands like a friend but actually planning to shoot her with his gun

a person who does not believe in or does not stay together with somebody else, when he/she is supposed to be doing it, i.e. a person who is unfaithful and disloyal;

a person who is afraid of everything or who does not fight but gives in easily; a coward,

e.g.

The young politician is not experienced enough to know that there will be a group of recreants in his own party who does not stay with him when the times are bad.

My friend and classmate is such a recreant that he does not even show up whenever there is a group clash or strike at the college.

two political recreants — Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (L) and US President Obama (R), both pose as friends but unfaithful and disloyal to each other (America with its allies bombed Gaddafi’s forces in Libya)
 
 

Recorder

recorder:

(plural: ‘recorders; pronunciation: the letter ‘c’ is said with a ‘k’ sound as in “king”)

Apart from several other meanings/definitions…

recorders of a large office checking their records

a person/official of an office who is responsible for keeping the records — files, ledgers, documents, etc.;

a judge who deals with criminal cases in a city;

(in England, UK) a lawyer/barrister with ten years of experience who is appointed to act as a part-time judge in the crown court,

a recorder of a hospital at work in the record room
e.g.

When anyone needs any records from an office, the best official to approach is the recorder.

Jones is not a full-time judge, she’s only a recorder.

(a tape recorder)

Note: ‘Recorder’ is more commonly used to refer to an electrical or electronics device or instrument that is used to record, i.e. keep a copy of some original sound or picture, and less commonly to refer to a flute — a vocal musical instrument.

(a mother and son playing recorders, flute-like music instrument)

 

Recluse

 
 

recluse:

(plural: ‘recluses‘; pronunciation: the letter ‘c’ is said with a ‘k’ sound as in “king” and letters ‘luse’  rhyme with the word “loose”)

a spiritual recluse now leading a normal life (Eckhart Tolle, spiritual teacher and writer)
a person who, out of his/her own choice, stays, usually alone, away from the society in a remote place (in reclusion), especially to spend the rest of his/her life in prayer or religious meditation;

an anchorite or anchoress; a hermit,

e.g.

After his wife’s death, he became a real recluse.

When she lost all her money in gambling, she left her hometown, settled in a remote place away from all her relatives and friends and led a life of a recluse.

[For an interesting article on recluse, you may visit: http://www.showbizspy.com/article/202128/sandra-bullock-becoming-a-recluse.html.]

(a recluse — a poisonous brown recluse spider)

Note: ‘Recluse’, usually called ‘brown recluse’, is a dangerous spider whose bite causes serious injury.

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Reciter

 
 

reciter:

(plural: ‘reciters‘)

a reciter — a school boy reciting something before his class as part of the recitation activity

a person who says/repeats something, such as a lesson or long speech, from memory  (i.e. the person repeats the lesson or speech, usually that he/she has prepared or by-hearted before, without looking at the written or printed text but just from the memory),

e.g.

In most religions, there are special reciters who recite some parts of the text from the holy books in order to impress the congregation.

In some schools, recitation is an important class activity and the best reciters always get the highest marks.

two famous reciters — Samia Khanan (L) from Pakistan and Hani Abdel Aziz (R) from Egypt — Champions at the 52nd International Tilawa
 
 

Recipient

recipient:

(plural: ‘recipients‘)

a person who receives something, such as an award, a prize, a medal, a title, etc.;

a patient whose damaged internal body organs are replaced by somebody else’s;

a  receiver,

e.g.

a recipient of a scholarship award (Lorielle Pevie, receiving the Col Frank Cossa Memorial Scholarship for 2007)

This year two recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize are from my country.

A R Rehman, the most popular music director from India, is one of the very few Asian recipients to get not one but two Oscar Awards in the same year!

Some rich recipients pay huge amounts of money to the donors of kidneys and heart.


AR Rehman, recipient of two Oscar Awards


Note: Though ‘receiver’ and ‘recipient’ are used as synonyms, there are some subtle differences between these two words. Basically, ‘recipient’ is more formal than ‘receiver’; however, ‘receiver’ has more meanings/definitions than ‘recipient’, and except for the meaning ‘a person or animal that gets or receives something from someone else’, the word ‘recipient’ cannot be used in place of ‘receiver’, e.g. one of the definitions of  ’receiver’ is “a football player who is allowed to catch and forward the ball”, and in this context, the word ‘recipient’ cannot be used, and more importantly, for the device/instrument that receives radio signals, only the word ‘receiver’ is accepted. In medical terminology, ‘recipient’ is more commonly used than ‘receiver’. The usage of ‘receiver’ and ‘recipient’ depends more on the collocation than on any hard and fast rule.

Return to “receiver“.    Return to “donor“.