Derivate

Part of speech: verb, noun, adjective

Definitions

1. Something produced or obtained from another source ; describing work that is unoriginal and based on something else
2. A thing that has been drawn or developed from an earlier source ; characterizing something as imitative and not original
3. Something taken or adapted from a prior origin ; describing a piece that lacks originality because it borrows heavily from another

Etymology: "Derivate" is a noun in its own right, used mainly in chemistry for a compound made from another compound through a chemical reaction. The word's pieces are clear: it comes from Latin "derivare," meaning to draw off water from a river by channeling it, from "de-" (away, down) and "rivus" (stream). Latin "derivatus," the past participle of that verb, passed into English as the adjective "derivate," meaning derived or not original. The noun sense developed later from a substantivation of that adjective, so the word came to name the thing itself rather than the quality of being derived. The original image is watery: a farmer diverting a stream into an irrigation channel. Latin speakers thus pictured origin as flow from a source, and "derive" in English kept that picture alive, so that a word or idea is said to flow from an earlier one. "Derivate" inherits this sense of descent, though in chemistry it is a precise technical term for a substance produced from a parent compound.

Synonyms: derivative, byproduct, offshoot, spin-off, descendant

Antonyms: original, primary