An adaptive equalizer, an adaptive equalization method and receiver are disclosed where the adaptive equalizer is used for performing adaptive equalization processing on a frequency-domain signal, a channel used by the frequency-domain signal containing multiple subcarriers, the adaptive equalizer comprises: an equalizer coefficient generating unit configured to, for each subcarrier, generate an equalizer coefficient to which the subcarrier corresponds according to channel information and a step length of the subcarrier; where different subcarriers correspond to different step lengths and an equalization processing unit configured to, for each subcarrier, perform equalization processing on a signal in the subcarrier by using the equalizer coefficient.