Derby

How to spell derby

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce derby

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does derby mean?

1. nounA sporting contest between two teams from the same city or region who are traditional rivals.
2. nounA flat horse race, traditionally for three-year-old horses.

Derby in a sentence

• The city ground out a tense win in the local derby.

• The trainer entered his best colt in the spring derby.

• Tickets for the cross-town derby sold out within an hour.

• She placed a small bet on an outsider in the derby.

Where does derby come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The word comes straight from the English place name Derby, a town in the Midlands whose own name is rooted in Old Norse: djur meaning 'deer' joined to by meaning 'farmstead' or 'settlement', so the town was once literally the 'place of the deer'. The sporting sense was born in 1780 when the twelfth Earl of Derby founded a famous flat horse race at Epsom, and the race became so celebrated that 'derby' began to mean any major sporting contest. From there English extended it to a match between two local rival teams, a 'local derby', because such clashes carried the same drama as the great race. American English separately attached the word to a stiff felt bowler hat in the late 1800s, reputedly because such hats were worn by spectators at English derby races. The capital D survives in the proper race name, but the lowercase 'derby' for a rivalry or a hat is now an ordinary common noun.

How the word is built

• derby (from the place name Derby, England, originally meaning 'deer settlement': Old Norse djur 'deer'
• by 'farm, settlement')