derivation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English derivacioun,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Middle French dérivation,^[5][6][7] recorded in 1377,^[7] and directly borrowed from Latin dērīvātiō (“a leading off, turning away; etymology”),^[2][6][8] the noun of action from dērīvō (“to lead or draw off”).^[2][7][8] The Latin verb comes from a phrase meaning "from a stream", that is dē (“from”) and rīvus (“stream”),^[2][5][7] from Proto-Indo-European *rei- (“to run, flow”).^[2] In Old French the more usual noun was derivaison.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The drawing off of pus or other matter from part of the body: in a translation of Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie, probably before 1425.^[3][5] Etymonline gives the early 15th century,^[2] and the unrevised OED has no record before 1530.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb was about water, leading a stream off from its source, and this literal sense also reached English: a draining or diverting of water is recorded from 1607 to 1835,^[7] and Johnson (1755) puts it first.^[9] The medical sense lasted into the early 19th century.^[7] The grammatical sense, already present in Latin,^[2] appears in English in 1447 according to Barnhart^[5] and is the tracing of a word to its root, or its formation from an earlier word; the Middle English Dictionary already has "derivation or etymon".^[3] From about 1600 the word broadened to origin or descent in general,^[2][7] and in the 17th century to the obtaining of anything from a source, and to the thing obtained.^[7][2][10] Mathematics took it up in 1816 for passing from a function to its derivative,^[7] and Chomsky's Syntactic Structures gave it a technical sense in 1957.^[7]

Timeline

• before 1425 – the drawing off of pus or blood.^[3][5]
• 1447 – the tracing of a word's origin.^[5] The OED dates the formation of a word from a root to 1530, in Palsgrave, and the tracing of its origin to before 1599, in Spenser.^[7]
• 1597 – transmission from a source (obsolete by 1699).^[7]
• 1607 – the leading of a current of water to another place (until 1835).^[7]
• 1609 – origin, descent, in Shakespeare's Pericles.^[7] The Shorter Oxford dates the sense to the late 15th century.^[10]
• 1641 – a derived product, in Milton.^[7][10]
• 1660 – the action of drawing or deducing from a source.^[7] Etymonline dates it to the 1650s.^[2]
• 1816 – in mathematics, passing from a function to its derivative.^[7]
• 1957 – in transformational grammar, in Chomsky.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of deriving something, or the state of being derived.^[11][7]
2. The source or origin of something; descent: a family of Norman derivation.^[11][7]
3. The formation of a word from an earlier word or base, or an account of how a word was formed; etymology.^[6][7][10]
4. Something derived; a derivative.^[11][7]
5. (mathematics) The deducing of a theorem or formula from accepted statements, or the sequence of statements that does so.^[11][10]
6. (mathematics) The operation of finding a derivative.^[11][7]
7. (obsolete) The drawing off of pus, blood or a humour from one part of the body.^[7][9][10]
8. (obsolete, 1607–1835) The leading of water away from its source; a branch of a river made in this way.^[7][9]

Word family

• derivational
• derivationally

Related words

• derive
• derivative
• rival
• rivulet

Usage notes

The OED has a separate noun derivation, the deviation of a projectile from its normal course, recorded from 1875; it takes this from a French noun of action from French dériver (“to drift”), which it traces to the English verb drive in its nautical sense, so that it is unrelated in origin to Latin dērīvātiō.^[7]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins