Derived

How to spell derived

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce derived

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does derived mean?

1. verbObtained, traced, or developed something from a particular source or origin.

Derived in a sentence

• The company derived most of its profit from overseas sales.

• She derived great satisfaction from finishing the project early.

Where does derived come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb derivare, which literally meant 'to lead or draw water off from a source', built from de- meaning 'away from' and rivus meaning 'a stream or brook'. The original image was thoroughly practical: channelling water out of a river into smaller streams or irrigation ditches. From that watery sense it broadened to mean drawing anything from an origin, so a conclusion could be 'drawn off' from evidence just as water was drawn off from a river. English borrowed it in the late 1300s and 1400s by way of Old French deriver, keeping the figurative meaning of obtaining or tracing something from a source. The hidden stream, rivus, is the same root that gives us 'rivulet', and remembering that single 'r' before the 'iv' helps guard against the common slip of writing a doubled letter.

How the word is built

• de- (from, away)
• riv (from Latin rivus: stream)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)