Noun
A leading or drawing off of water from a stream or source.
The act of receiving anything from a source; the act of procuring an effect from a cause, means, or condition, as profits from capital, conclusions or opinions from evidence.
The act of tracing origin or descent, as in grammar or genealogy; as, the derivation of a word from an Aryan root.
The state or method of being derived; the relation of origin when established or asserted.
The operation of deducing one function from another according to some fixed law, called the law of derivation, as the of differentiation or of integration.
A drawing of humors or fluids from one part of the body to another, to relieve or lessen a morbid process.
Source: Webster's dictionaryWhereas the work is understood to be traceable to a source (through a process of derivation or "filiation"), the Text is without a source - the "author" a mere "guest" at the reading of the Text. Roland Barthes
Art imitates nature not in its effects as such, but in its causes, in its ‘manner,' in its process, which are nothing but a participation in and a derivation of actual objects, of the Art of God himself. Paul Claudel
We can deduce, often, from one part of physics like the law of gravitation, a principle which turns out to be much more valid than the derivation. Richard Feynman
A doctor once told me that with crying you aren't sure what its derivation is. If someone comes at you with a knife, you don't cry: you scream, you try to run. When it's over and you're OK, that's when you cry. Bill Viola
My Irish derivation has nothing to do with me. Why should it? Carroll O'Connor
MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. Ambrose Bierce