Emily Dickinson Lexicon

DER-I-VA'TION, n. [L. derivatio.]

1. The act of deriving, drawing or receiving from a source; as, the derivation of an estate from ancestors, or of profits from capital, or of truth or facts from antiquity.
2. In grammar, the drawing or tracing of a word from its root or original; as, derivation from the L. derivo, and the latter from rivus, a stream.
3. A drawing from, or turning aside from, a natural course or channel; as, the derivation of water from its channel by lateral drains.
4. A drawing of humors from one part of the body to another; as, the derivation of humors from the eye, by a blister on the neck.
5. The thing derived or deduced. – Glanville.