derive

present singular third person derives · participle present deriving · participle past derived · past derived

1. transitiveTo obtain or receive (something) from something else.

   Reading books is the best way to derive knowledge.

   3 more examples

   Bob the aforesaid, and his present chances of deriving a competent independence from the honourable profession to which he had devoted himself.

   1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “Relates How Mr. Pickwick, with the Assistance of Samuel Weller, Essayed to Soften the Heart of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and to Mollify the Wrath of Mr. Robert Sawyer”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC, page 508

   Power is derived from a British United Traction Limited "A"-type 150-h.p. six-cylinder horizontal diesel engine; this drives through a fluid flywheel, and thence through a free wheel unit to a four-speed epicyclic gearbox.

   1958 April 28, “Diesel Railbus for British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 275

   Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.

   2013 July-August, Sarah Glaz, “Ode to Prime Numbers”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4

2. transitivehuman sciencesTo deduce (a conclusion) by reasoning.
3. transitivehuman sciencesTo find the derivation of (a word or phrase).
4. transitivechemistryTo create (a compound) from another by means of a reaction.
5. intransitiveTo originate or stem (from).

   Her excellent organisation skills derive from her time as a secretary in the army.

   3 more examples

   Britannia's firebox would appear to have derived from those of the Bulleid Pacifics, which it closely resembles.

   1951 April, Stirling Everard, “A Matter of Pedigree”, in Railway Magazine, number 600, page 273

   Today, popularity is typically a multialgorithmic measure. At Flickr, a photo's interestingness derives from views, comments, notes, bookmarks, favorites...

   2010, Peter Morville, Jeffery Callender, Search Patterns: Design for Discovery

   As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.

   2012 January 28, Robert M. Pringle, “How to Be Manipulative”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, page 31

6. To turn the course of (water, etc.); to divert and distribute into subordinate channels.

   For fear it [water] choke up the pits […] they [the workman] deriue it by other drains.

   Book 33

7. proscribedtransitivemathematicsTo differentiate (a function).