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Derivation   /dˌɛrəvˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Derivation

noun
1.
The source or origin from which something derives (i.e. comes or issues).  "Music of Turkish derivation"
2.
(historical linguistics) an explanation of the historical origins of a word or phrase.  Synonyms: deriving, etymologizing.
3.
A line of reasoning that shows how a conclusion follows logically from accepted propositions.
4.
(descriptive linguistics) the process whereby new words are formed from existing words or bases by affixation.
5.
Inherited properties shared with others of your bloodline.  Synonyms: ancestry, filiation, lineage.
6.
Drawing of fluid or inflammation away from a diseased part of the body.
7.
Drawing off water from its main channel as for irrigation.
8.
The act of deriving something or obtaining something from a source or origin.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Derivation" Quotes from Famous Books



... words which carry a forcible expression in one language, appear ridiculous enough in another, till the true derivation is known. Another reflection too occurs as curious; that after the overthrow of all business, all knowledge, and all pleasure resulting from either, by the Goths, Italy should be the first to cherish and revive those money-getting occupations, which now thrive better in more Northern climates: ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... Russell and Bullen, obsessed by so ancient a tradition, should accept uncritically the landsman's spelling. But educated sailors devoid of 'literary' pretensions have always written the word as it was pronounced. To my mind the strongest argument against the literary landsman's derivation of the word is that the British sailor cultivated the supremest contempt for everything French, and would be the last person to label such a definitely British practice as shanty-singing with a French title. If there had been such a thing in French ships as a labour-song bearing ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry

... not a Darwinian: the derivation of our bodies from the bodies of apes is a conception too grossly materialistic for him. Our souls, however, he is quite willing to derive from the souls of lower animals. Obviously we have pre-existed; how are we to account for Mozart's precocity ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... particularly pointed out. In the present consideration the peculiarities of detail and ornament are all that need be taken up, as the views given furnish no opportunity for the study of plan or general design. The derivation of the Byzantine style was indicated in the March number of THE BROCHURE SERIES in describing the ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 04, April 1895 - Byzantine-Romanesque Windows in Southern Italy • Various

... coming, by the right or left, as one should say "starboard helm" or "port helm," and both doing the same, two vessels pass clear of one another; and to this day the gondoliers of Venice use the old words, and tell long-winded stories of their derivation and first meaning, which seem quite unnecessary. But in Beroviero's time, the gondola had only lately come into fashion, and every one adopted it quickly because it was much cheaper than keeping horses, and it was far more ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... stage of differentiation consists in the formation of either a pouch or an additional layer between the ectoderm and the endoderm, which is called the mesoderm. It is probably in most cases derived from the endoderm, but the exact mode of its derivation is still somewhat obscure. Sometimes it has the appearance of itself constituting two layers; but it is needless to go into these details; for in any case the ultimate result is the same—viz. that of converting the Metazooen into the form of a tube, ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... Diderot, etc., we do not need to speak any more than of the physiocrats, now that we have shown the double derivation of French materialism from the physics of Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche and Leibnitz. This antagonism could only be realized by Germans after they themselves had come ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... as to the derivation of the term port. Some, like Kemble, refer it to the Lat. portus, in the sense of an enclosed place for sale or purchase, a market. ("Portus est conclusus locus, quo importantur merces et inde exportantur. ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... language of Persia was Chaldaeic, we are again thrown back on Indian sources for the origin of the great book of the ancient Persians. Even the name of the priests of the Persian religion of Zoroaster, Mag or Magi, is of Sanscrit derivation. ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear

... thread which connects us with the prehistoric past. By picking up and piecing out the scattered remnants of language, we form a patchwork of wondrous design. Oblige us by considering the derivation of the word "sarcophagus," and see if it be not suggestive of potted meats. Observe the significance of the phrase "sweet sixteen." What a world of meaning lurks in the expression "she is sweet as a peach," and how suggestive ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... the derivation of 'feast' and 'fast' originally the same? that which is appointed connected with 'fas,' and that from 'fari?'" I should say no; and let me cite the familiar lines from the ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various

... basins of fresh milk are still set in every mountain chalet. The origin of the Gruyere customs, like the coraules and the still observed habit of hanging wreaths on their door posts or in the oak groves, have a derivation of the most distant antiquity, in the Chaldean cradle of the race, in the myths of India and the Orient. The personified forces of Nature, the cloud wraiths of the mountains, the lisping voices of the streams, for many ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... into the obscure past of Highland history—to a time, I doubt not, when not a few of the adjacent peat mosses still lived as forests, and when some of the neighbouring clans—Frasers, Bissets, and Chisholms—had, at least under the existing names (French and Saxon in their derivation), not yet begun to be. Ere we reached the solitary inn of Auchen-nasheen—a true Highland clachan of the ancient type, the night had fallen dark and stormy for a night in June; and a grey mist which had been descending for hours ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... Covenanter, was undoubtedly on the Border in the 'killing times,' and is said to have escaped from the hunters when preaching on Peden Pike by intervention of a mist, but as in old maps this rounded hill west of Otterburn is spelt Paden, the derivation seems doubtful. Peden's Cleuch on the north side of Carter seems undoubtedly to have been ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... the present Secretary's "Don'ts" of similar derivation is "Don't have a fight with the Senate unless you make sure first that you have ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... of Stuart Mill, whose noble sense of fair-play had impressed him. He plunged with hot zeal into the writings of Steinthal and Max Mueller, whose studies in comparative religion changed to him the whole aspect of the universe. Taine's historical criticism, with its disrespectful derivation of the hero from food, climate, and race, lured him still farther away from his old Norse and romantic landmarks, until there was no longer any hope of his ever returning to them. But when from this promontory of advanced thought he looked back upon his idyllic love-stories of peasant lads and ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... its association with a punct, and conversely the punct gains its derived character as a route of approximation from its association with the event-particle. These two characters of a point are always recurring in any treatment of the derivation of a point from the observed facts of nature, but in general there is no clear recognition ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead

... too, with the place of interment; it was not called by that hard name that distinguishes it too often now, viz., the grave-yard, but was called by the milder term of cemetery, which, from its Greek derivation, means a dormitory, or sleeping-place. Nor was the word bury employed to signify the consigning the body to the earth. No, this sounded too profane in the ears of the primitive Christians; they rather chose the ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... 1804, is again consulted; and from his second account, the following additional particulars have been gleaned. [Now, however, as the reader will observe, the name is Gayal, and not Gyall; although, according to Mr. Macrae's own derivation of the word, it would appear to be more ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey

... pronounced Vehme, is of uncertain derivation, but was always used to intimate this inquisitorial and secret Court. The members were termed Wissenden, or Initiated, answering to the modern ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various

... notes, there have been gleaned a number of interesting items relative to the language and customs of the inhabitants of Pal-ul-don that are not brought out in the story. For the benefit of those who may care to delve into the derivation of the proper names used in the text, and thus obtain some slight insight into the language of the race, there is appended an incomplete glossary taken from some of ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... perfectly at the beginning of its existence as a perfect insect, as at the close of life. Here there is no experience, no tuition, no consciousness, no reason, and no powers save such as have been transferred to the insect as a mere matter of heredity and derivation from its ancestors, who lived by an unconscious rule of thumb, so to speak. It is very hard at first to convince one's self, when watching an ant's nest, that intelligence and consciousness play little or no part in the apparently intelligent operation ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... adopted the same point of view, that of Moses and of Biblical tradition. Two years later, in February, 1839, being already in possession of the Suard pension, he addressed to the Institute, as a competitor for the Volney prize, a memoir entitled: "Studies in Grammatical Classification and the Derivation of some French words." It was his first work, revised and presented in another form. Four memoirs only were sent to the Institute, none of which gained the prize. Two honorable mentions were granted, one of them to memoir No. 4; that is, to P. J. Proudhon, printer at Besancon. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... compose; but we hold that education forms the only direct means through which written law, as a regulator of conduct, can be known, and that, in consequence, in its practical breadth and average aspect, it is only educated men who know it, and only uneducated men who are ignorant of it. And hence the derivation of the magistrate's judicial right and duty. But on this part of our subject, with Free Churchmen for our readers, we need not surely insist. Our Church has homologated at least the general principle of the civil magistrate's ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... the bridge the antiquary mentions as built by "Swithun, a noble lady," was not the first. Again, it is doubtful whether the sub-title "Overie" means "of the ferry," or "over the river," or whether the form "Overies," which the word sometimes takes, does not suggest a derivation from "Ofers," "of the bank or shore," a meaning contained in the modern German Ufer. John Overy, or Overs, was the father of Mary, but whether the surname was derived from the place, or vice versa, is uncertain. In any case, the name, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley

... [6] This absurd derivation of the name of the country and people, is unworthy of credit. Organum was probably the country called Irgonekan or Irganakon by Abulgari; and the word signifies a valley surrounded by steep mountains, exactly correspondent with the description ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... basis of knowledge, but Aristotle made experience that basis. Plato directed man to the contemplation of Ideas; Aristotle, to the observation of Nature. Instead of proceeding synthetically and dialectically like Plato, he pursues an analytic course. His method is hence inductive,—the derivation of certain principles from a sum of given facts and phenomena. It would seem that positive science began with Aristotle, since he maintained that experience furnishes the principles of every science; but while his conception was just, there was not at that time a sufficient ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... head, 'tanner, in this instance, is not an English word.' Is it not surprising that the language of Mr. Petulengro and of Tawno Chikno is continually coming to my assistance whenever I appear to be at a nonplus with respect to the derivation of crabbed words? I have made out crabbed words in AEschylus by means of the speech of Chikno and Petulengro, and even in my Biblical researches I have derived no slight assistance from it. It appears to be a kind of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... distinguished in our home annals, as well as in those of Australia. The Celtic name of the Livingstones was M'Leay, which, according to Dr. Livingstone's own idea, means "son of the gray-headed," but according to another derivation, "son of the physician." It has been surmised that the name may have been given to some son of the famous Beatoun, who held the post of physician to the Lord of the Isles. Probably Dr. Livingstone never heard of this derivation; if he had, he would have ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... us ask, the name 'eme' and the later form, 'emu.' The New Historical English Dictionary suggests a derivation from a Portuguese word, 'ema,' signifying a crane. But no authority is quoted to prove that ema signifies, or ever signified, crane. On the other hand, various Portuguese dictionaries which have been consulted ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont

... the derivation of the names of several of the rivers:—Parana, resembling the sea; Paraguay, from the Payaguas, a tribe of Indians who were met with by the discoverers navigating the river; and Uruguay, from a bird—the uru—which is found on the banks of ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... knowledge and in indolent conveniences we beg to announce that they made up in foolhardiness which they called bravery. Well, if it can be called brave to make a needless target of oneself to a bunch of savage Indians, why then they had the proper derivation of the term. ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)

... get at this, and was, on the whole, not sorry to hear it. Richard was studying the derivation of ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... reasons have been assigned for the origin of the word Peru, as the name of the empire of the Incas, unknown to themselves, at least in that sense. The most probable derivation is from the river Piura, near its northern frontier, where it was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... nunnery where the inmates are permitted to meet and converse with each other, or with visitors and friends from without," and second, "A room in a house which the family usually occupy for society and conversation; the reception room for visitors." It is, as the derivation declares, "a talking room." ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... have one peculiar to themselves. On the other hand it is an inevitable postulate of the doctrine of Descent that fish are the original progenitors of all other vertebrates. Hence the five-joint limbs of the latter must have developed from the fins of fish. This derivation was actually attempted but without success, as Fleischmann points out at considerable length. By means of citations taken from the writings of Darwinian adherents, he illustrates the confusion which even now reigns among them on this matter. The evolution of the remaining vertebrates from ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... so much nicety and exactness, as to keep the said question eternally pending, and the balance of the controversy perpetually in statu quo. By an aphaeresis of the a, an elision of the second e, and an easy and natural mutation of x into k, the derivation of this name proceeds according to the strictest principles of etymology: aien ex ison—Ien ex ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... of the Eng. Language. 2. A Complete List of Scripture Proper Names, including Apocrypha, and their pronunciation. 3. American Geographical Names, with their derivation, signification, and their pronunciation. 4. Nicknames of the States and Cities of the U. S. 5. The Discovery and Discoverers of America. 6. The Aborigines of North America, showing their tribes, location and ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... the case of quiescent consonants. It may be inferred, from the practice of all living languages, that consonants whereof the corresponding articulations have been suppressed in speaking may yet be retained with propriety in writing, when they are requisite to point out the derivation of vocables, or the radical part of declinable words. But this exception ought to be allowed only to a moderate extent, for the reasons already assigned; to which it may be added, that the far greater part of the suppressed articulations can be easily discovered and retraced ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart

... which seems to prove little except the author's erudition. He assumes the Teutonic origin of the sisters throughout, and, consequently, adduces little evidence in favour of the theory. One of his points is the derivation of the word "weird" or "wayward," which, as will be shown subsequently, was applied to witches. Another point is, that the witch scenes savour strongly of the staff-rime of old German poetry. It is interesting to find two ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... Umbrellas, and also describes the hall of the King of Ava as decorated with an Umbrella. The Mahratta princes, who reigned at Poonah and Sattara, had the title of Ch'hatra-pati, "Lord of the Umbrella." Ch'hatra or chta has been suggested as the derivation of satrapaes (exatrapaes in Theopompus), and it seems a probable derivation enough. The chta of the Indian and Burmese princes is large and heavy, and requires a special attendant, who has a regular position in the royal household. In Ava it seems to have been part ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster

... Greek derivation, and signifies judgment. Hence I presume some persons who have not understood the original, and have seen the English translation of the primitive, have concluded that it meant judgment in the legal sense, in which it is frequently ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... Temple of Jerusalem was a facsimile of the original built by Jehovah in the lowest heaven or that of the Moon. For the same idea (doubtless a derivation from the Talmud) amongst the Moslems concerning the heavenly Ka'abah called Bayt al-Ma'mur (the Populated House) see my Pilgrimage ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... thought that the occasion was nothing more than a vast assembly of greys and greens enjoying the pastime which boys imitate. All round were leaping frogs engaged in contests—greys against greens. Suspecting no evil intent, it was interesting thus to note the derivation of the game we have all played in sportful youth; but closer inspection proved that, instead of a friendly tournament on the grand scale, the rival frogs were indulging in shocking cannibalism. A grey frog would approach ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... internal connexion than that they are assigned respectively to the twelve months of the year. They are all different in subject, metre, character, and excellence. They are called AEglogues, according to the whimsical derivation adopted from the Italians of the word which the classical writers called Eclogues: "AEglogai, as it were aigon or aigonomon logoi, that is, Goatherd's Tales." The book is in its form an imitation of that highly artificial kind of poetry which the later Italians of the ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... and State, struggles between, in the eleventh century; theory of; adjustment of the disputes between; further disputes. Church building in the early Norman days. Church patronage, quarrel of the Barons with Innocent IV. respecting. Clapham, derivation of its name. Clare, Gilbert de, Earl of Gloucester, knighted by Montfort; secedes from the Barons; joins the last crusade; married to Joan of Acre, daughter of Edward I.; death of. Clarendon, the Council and Constitutions of. Clement ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... of the word Snob.—Can any of your valuable correspondents give me the origin or derivation of ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various

... in vain to ascertain the meaning and derivation of the word, which is not to be found in Mr. Halliwell's excellent Dictionary of Archaic Words. Can you ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various

... spoken of having butter made in the house, but Gopal carries on all departments of a dairyman's business, and you may buy butter of him at two annas a "cope." Let philologists settle the derivation of the word. The "cope" is a measure like a small tea-cup, and when Gopal has filled it, he presses the butter well down with his hand, so that a man skilled in palmistry may read the honest milkman's fortune off any cope of his butter. How he makes it, or of ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... community. It is true, the family of a murdered person are expected to pursue the homicide with all the tenacity of a Corsican vendetta, but the tribal laws are kept singularly clean from the ferocity of individual habits. A strange thing, indicating probably a derivation from times at least as early as Augustine, is that the Kabyle code (a mixture, like all primitive codes, of law and religion) is called by the Greek term canon (kanoun). An institution of great protective use, in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... the investigator, it has "the heart" against it even a doctrine of the reciprocal conditionalness of the "good" and the "bad" impulses, causes (as refined immorality) distress and aversion in a still strong and manly conscience—still more so, a doctrine of the derivation of all good impulses from bad ones. If, however, a person should regard even the emotions of hatred, envy, covetousness, and imperiousness as life-conditioning emotions, as factors which must be present, fundamentally and essentially, in the general economy of life (which must, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... derived from 'Carnelevamen,' a 'solace for the flesh.' Byron alone is responsible for the barbarous derivation 'Carne Vale,' farewell meat—a philological impossibility. In the minds of the people it is probably most often translated as 'Meat Time,' a name which had full meaning in times when occasional strict fasting and frequent abstinence were imposed on Romans almost by law. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... of repeating himself. He could not stand still. That is why a whole generation of otherwise dissimilar artists have drawn inspiration from his work. That is why it implies no disparagement of any living artist when I say that the prime characteristic of the new movement is its derivation from Cezanne. ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... imperfect state (it seems never to have received its author's final revision), because it preserves many terms and forms that would otherwise have been lost, besides much curious information concerning ancient civil and religious usages. In regard to the derivation of words, his principles are sound, but his practice is often amusingly absurd. We must remember, however, that the science of language did not advance beyond infancy until after our own century had opened. The great reputation of Varro was founded upon a work now lost, entitled ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... Bechuanas alone use the term to themselves as a generic one for the whole nation. They have managed, also, to give a comprehensive name to the whites, viz., Makoa, though they can not explain the derivation of it any more than of their own. It seems to mean "handsome", from the manner in which they use it to indicate beauty; but there is a word so very like it meaning "infirm", or "weak", that Burchell's conjecture is ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... Westminster. It formed part of the great demesne belonging to the Abbey of Westminster, and was inhabited chiefly by Thames fishermen, who had a settlement on the bank, and by the farmers of the Westminster estates. The derivation of the name from La Chere ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... tabula, or tabella, a picture. Another derivation is, "quasi e tabulis compactum," because the large openings into it ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... certainly true as a result of comparative research than that the tribe is the common heritage of those people who have become the dominant rulers of the Indo-European world. I use this term "tribe" in no formal sense, not in the sense of its Roman derivation and use, which shows it quite as a secondary institution, but as the most convenient term to define that grouping of men with wives, families, and descendants, and all the essentials of independent life, which is found as a ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... accusation of sorcery. That male heirs of the opposite party should have expelled the orphan heiress was only too natural an occurrence. Nor did Grisell conceal her home; but Whitburn was an impossible word to Portuguese lips, and Dacre they pronounced after its crusading derivation De Acor. ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that he could never discover the derivation of beong, or beonk. It is very plainly the Italian bianco, white, which, like blanc in French and blank in German, is often applied slangily to a silver coin. It is as if one had said, "a shiner." ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... long absence, I took occasion to inquire into the latter-day prevalence of the old-time belief in what was known as "conjuration" or "goopher," my childish recollection of which I have elsewhere embodied into a number of stories. The derivation of the word "goopher" I do not know, nor whether any other writer than myself has recognized its existence, though it is in frequent use in certain parts of the South. The origin of this curious superstition ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt

... particularly as tea, in the mouth of a character, like carpenter Clarenbach, would appear preposterous. The antiquaries of Yorkshire and Lancashire derive the word bagging from the old custom of carrying bread and cheese in a bag, in the afternoon, to the labourers in the fields; and this derivation is not ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland

... meet one man of letters, and he the greatest of the great age, who was a bibliophile. The enemies and rivals of Moliere—De Vise, De Villiers, and the rest— are always reproaching him—with his love of bouquins. There is some difference of opinion among philologists about the derivation of bouquin, but all book-hunters know the meaning of the word. The bouquin is the "small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold," which lies among the wares of the stall-keeper, patient in rain and dust, till the hunter comes who can appreciate ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... and pleasant country, the Romans were plentifully supplied with water and forage: and several forts, which might have embarrassed the motions of the army, submitted, after some resistance, to the efforts of their valor. The fleet passed from the Euphrates into an artificial derivation of that river, which pours a copious and navigable stream into the Tigris, at a small distance below the great city. If they had followed this royal canal, which bore the name of Nahar-Malcha, the intermediate situation of Coche would ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... course never can be made in this way, seeing that, in regard to their future employment, which must be entirely independent of experience, they must have a far different certificate of birth to show from that of a descent from experience. This attempted physiological derivation, which cannot properly be called deduction, because it relates merely to a quaestio facti, I shall entitle an explanation of the possession of a pure cognition. It is therefore manifest that there can only be a transcendental deduction of these conceptions and by no means an empirical one; ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... the demi-Gods and Demons, and their agency with man; the universe, its structure, extent, and duration; the origin of things from the elements of fire, water, air, and earth; the human soul, its essence and derivation; the summum bonum, and finis bonorum; with a thousand idle dreams and fancies on these and other subjects, the knowledge of which is withheld from man; leaving but a short chapter for his moral duties, and the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... human life from the beginning, what a visionary spectacle it is! How miraculously permanent in the whole! how sorrowfully ephemeral in the parts! What pathetic sentiments it awakens! Amidst what awful mysteries it hangs! The subject of the derivation of the soul has been copiously discussed by hundreds of philosophers, physicians, and poets, from Vyasa to Des Cartes, from Galen to Ennemoser, from Orpheus to Henry More, from Aristotle to Frohschammer. German literature during the last hundred years ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... work, the ease and facility of the style would be admired; as a translation, it is unrivalled.' Croker reviewed the book in the Quarterly in his accustomed strain of playful brutality, rejoiced savagely over the numerous blunders, [Footnote: The most amusing of these is the derivation of the Prince of Wales' motto 'Ich dien' from two Welsh words, 'Eich deyn,' said to signify 'This is your man!'] and credited the author with almost as many blasphemies as Lady Morgan herself. The Edinburgh, in a more impartial ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... experimental mode of reasoning into moral subjects.' Now, as Reid thinks, the effect of this was to construct our whole knowledge out of the representative ideas. The empirical factor is so emphasised that we lose all grasp of the real world. Locke, indeed, though he insists upon the derivation of our whole knowledge from 'ideas,' leaves reality to the 'primary qualities' without clearly expounding their relation to the secondary. But Berkeley, alarmed by the tendency of the Cartesian doctrines ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... further of derivation, in the matter of compounds and crystallized word groups there are usually differences between a spoken and written language. The written language is apt to establish certain canons which the people do not observe. For instance, we avoid ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... before you yourself are aware of them. While in his hands nothing petty invades you. Great-mindedness becomes possible. "Magnanimus AEneas" must have had an excellent Boy. What is the history of the Boy? How and where did he originate? What is the derivation of his name? I have heard it traced to the Hindoostanee word bhai, a brother, but the usual attitude of the Anglo-Indian's mind towards his domestics does not give sufficient support to this. I incline ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... MR. F.S. MARTIN (No. 14. p. 215.), for the derivation of "Calamity," to the Etymologicon Linguae Latinae of Gerard Vossius, or to the Totius Latinitatis Lexicon of Facciolatus and Forcellinus. He will there find that the word calamitas was first used with reference to the storms which destroyed the stalks (calami) of corn, and ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various

... hour, while it will disengage 6.500 liters if its resistance be but 0.0001 of an ohm. It is true that, in this case, the current would be in the neighborhood of 15,000 amperes. Laboratory voltameters frequently have a resistance of a hundred ohms; it would require a million in derivation to produce the same effect. The specific resistance of the solutions that can be employed in the production of gases by electrolysis is, in round numbers, twenty thousand times greater than that of mercury. In order to obtain a resistance of 0.0001 of an ohm, it is necessary ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various

... people made offerings at their Mother Church. After the Reformation the natural mother was substituted for the spiritual, and the day was set apart for visiting relations. Excellent simnel cakes (Low Lat., siminellus, fine flour) are still made in the North, where the current derivation of the word is ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... most approved derivation of the word Chapel?—Capella, from the goat-skin covering of what was at first a movable tabernacle? capa, a cape worn by capellanus, the chaplain? capsa, a chest for sacred relics? kaba Eli (Heb.), the house of God? or what ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.03.23 • Various

... is somehow derived from another, that the different sorts which now flourish are lineal (or unlineal) descendants of other and earlier sorts—it now concerns us to ask, What are the grounds in Nature, the admitted facts, which suggest hypotheses of derivation in some :shape or other? Reasons there must be, and plausible ones, for the persistent recurrence of theories upon this genetic basis. A study of Darwins book, and a general glance at the present state of the natural sciences, enable us to gather the following as among the most ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... Dittenberger Inscr. Sylloge 628, Ar. Thesm. 84, 296 et passim. The plural hai Thesmophoroi used in late Greek is not, as one might imagine, a projection from the whole band of worshippers; it is merely due to the disappearance of the dual from Greek. I accept provisionally the derivation of these thesmoi from thes- in thessasthai, thesphatos, theskelos, polythestos, apothestos, &c.: cf. A. W. Verrall in J. H. S. xx, p. 114; and Prolegomena, pp. 48 ff., 136 f. But, whatever the derivation, the Thesmoi were ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... using the book for class-room purposes the teacher emphasize not only the definition and derivation of all terms studied, but the spelling and pronunciation as well. For this latter purpose a pronouncing index has ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens

... for one climate, or section of country, to suit that of another quite dissimilar, so much alteration of the original text has at times been found necessary, that I have not felt at liberty to affix the name of the original writer, but have simply added the usual marks denoting derivation of authority. ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr

... out in my essay on "The Gods of Germany," the very first words of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," strike a magnificent note of universalism, which is sustained in the derivation of all humanity from Adam, and again from Noah, with one original language. Nor is this a modern gloss, for the Talmud already deduces the interpretation. Racine's "Esther" in the noble lines lauded by Voltaire might ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill

... should be written "Calchedonia." The false form drove out the more correct, probably through a mispronunciation, based on a wrong derivation, at some date long ago. The sites of Chrysopolis and Calchedon correspond respectively to the ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... either a god or fear. The Arabic Allah and the Hebrew Eloah are by some traced to a common root, signifying to tremble, to show fear, though the more usual derivation is from one ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... my apparel. In so far as the sensation was concerned, I might as well have been entirely naked, so short and light was the tunic. When I asked Chal-az for the Caspakian name for rope, he told me ga, and for the first time I understood the derivation of the word ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... so curious and so inconclusive, relative to the origin of the Pelasgi (according to Herodotus the earliest inhabitants of Attica), which have vainly agitated the learned. It may amuse the antiquary to weigh gravely the several doubts as to the derivation of their name from Pelasgus or from Peleg—to connect the scattered fragments of tradition—and to interpret either into history or mythology the language of fabulous genealogies. But our subtlest hypotheses ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... 827, and also in a charter of AEthelstan, king of the English. It appears in several variant forms (brytenwalda, bretenanwealda, &c.), and means most probably "lord of the Britons" or "lord of Britain"; for although the derivation of the word is uncertain, its earlier syllable seems to be cognate with the words Briton and Britannia. In the Chronicle the title is given to Ecgbert, king of the English, "the eighth king that was ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... This derivation of names and descent through the father is regarded by almost all students, and by Mr. J. G. Frazer, in one passage of his latest study of the subject, as a great step in progress. ['The Beginnings of Religion ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... preceding number) sketched some of the reasons suggestive of such a theory of derivation of species,—reasons which give it plausibility, and even no small probability, as applied to our actual world and to changes occurring since the latest tertiary period. We are well pleased at this moment to find that the conclusions we were arriving ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... corresponding to the classical Golden Age. Its characteristics are, that in it everything is perfect; right eternal now exists in full power. In this age there are neither gods nor demons (D[a]navas, Gandharvas, Yakshas, R[a]kshas, Serpents), neither buying nor selling. By a lucus a non the derivation of the name Krita is k[r.]tam eva na kartavyam, i.e., with a pun, it is called the 'sacred age' because there are no sacrifices in that age. No S[a]ma Veda, Rig Yeda, or Yajur Veda exist as distinct Vedas.[49] There is no mortal work. Fruit ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... the origin of the term Pyramid from the two Coptic words, "pyr," "division," and "met," "ten." This derivation, which he first heard of in Cairo, is, he believes, a significant appellation for a metrological monument such as the Great Pyramid, and coincides with its five-sided, five-cornered, etc., features (see anteriorly, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... which they found it"; but if he had accompanied us in our walk that day across those desolate downs, and felt the pangs of hunger as we did, mile after mile in the dark, he would have sought for no other derivation of the name Hungerford, and could have found ample corroboration by following us into the coffee-room of the "Bear Hotel" that night. ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... The impersonal character of Nephthys, her artificial origin, and her derivation from Isis, have been pointed out by Maspero (Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie Egyptiennes, vol. ii. pp. 362-364). The very name of the goddess, which means the lady (nibit) of the mansion (hait), ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... Canes Gothi. In modern French the word means hypocrite, and this would come from the notion of the outward conformity to the Catholic formularies imposed on the Arian Goths by their orthodox protectors. Etymologically, the derivation is good enough, according to Diez, Romanisches Woerterbuch; Provencal ca, dog; Get, Gothic. Before quitting Cagot, we may observe that the derivation of bigot, our bigot, another word of the same kind, is ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... students of Cornish nomenclature should work. But in the investigation of place-names in any language one must always allow for corruption and alteration in the course of centuries, and in a Celtic country for the Celticising of names of non-Celtic derivation. Thus the well-known Welsh name Bettws is probably the old English bede-house (prayer-house), Gattws, less common, is gatehouse. The terminations aig, sgor, bhal, dail, ort, so common in the Hebrides and West Highlands, are Gaelic forms of the Norse vik, skjœr, val, dal, fjord, ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner

... the mysteries, the sacerdotal religion, their philosophy before and after Socrates, the stage, the Homeric poetry and the legendary belief of the people, and from the sources and productive causes in the derivation and confluence of the tribes that finally shaped themselves into a nation of Greeks—to give a juster and more distinct view of this singular people, and of the place which they occupied in the history of the world, and the great scheme of divine providence, than I have hitherto seen,—or ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... perfume resembling a mixture of sandal-wood and cedar; the other cypress is a dwarf variety that seldom exceeds twenty feet in height, with a maximum circumference of two feet; this is a totally different wood, and is intensely hard, while the former is easily worked, but durable. The derivation of the name Cyprus has been sought for from many sources; and the opinions of the authorities differ. English people may reflect that they alone spell and pronounce the word as "Cyprus." The name of the cypress-tree, which at one time clothed the mountains ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... [3] This derivation of the river's name is by many considered fanciful. A more likely source of the designation is the Indian word "Amassona," i.e., boat-destroyer, referring to the tidal phenomenon known as "bore" or "proroca," which sometimes uproots tress and sweeps ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

... termination that some part is wanting to it; and this appearance, together with the fact that the fibres of this part of the muscle blend with those of the internal oblique and cremaster, and cannot be separated except by severing the connexion, at once suggests the idea that the cremaster is a derivation from ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... Derivation: French, adaptation of the Iroquois word hiro, used to conclude a speech, and kou, an exclamation (Charlevoix). Hale gives as possible derivations ierokwa, the indeterminate form of the verb to smoke, signifying "they ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... however, believed that its sculptures represented the education of Crispus, the son of Constantine, and that the name Chrysopolis, by which Besancon was very generally known in early times, was only a corruption of Crispopolis. Earlier writers are in favour of the natural derivation of Chrysopolis, and assert that when the Senones lost their famous chief, the Brennus of Roman history, before Delphos, they built a town where Byzantium afterwards stood, and called it Bisantium and Chrysopolis, in memory of ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... (Abrak) in large plates, and in rock crystal (Belor) of a large size. It is probably in reference to this mineral, that some parts of this great alpine chain, towards the north-west, has been named Belor Tag, although Mr Elphinston gives another derivation, and changes the final r into a t, in order to accommodate the word to his meaning, which may, however, be quite correct. Besides these mineral productions, the alpine region has several metallic veins, especially lead and zinc, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... (Conifers) and the Cycads have seeds which are unprotected by a seed-vessel, and they are therefore called "Gymnosperms." All the other Exogens, including the ordinary trees, shrubs, and flowering plants, have the seeds enclosed in a seed-vessel, and are therefore called "Angiosperms." The derivation of these terms will be found in the Glossary at the end ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... formed by accumulated millionths of farthings; more compendiously it arises normally from, and through, action. Action arises normally from, and through, opinion. Opinion, from, and through, hypothesis. "Hypothesis," as the derivation of the word itself shows, is singularly near akin to "underlying, and only in part knowable, substratum;" and what is this but "God" translated from the language of Moses into that of Mr. Herbert Spencer? The conception of God is like nature—it returns to us in another shape, no matter how often ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler



Words linked to "Derivation" :   inheritance, inference, rootage, origin, linguistic process, diachrony, crossbred, root, descent, human action, act, human activity, beginning, hereditary pattern, pedigree, source, derive, filiation, drawing, purebred, extraction, bloodline, eponymy, illation, historical linguistics, account, drawing off, deed, diachronic linguistics, descriptive linguistics, etymologizing, explanation



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