Sample sentences for DERIVE - verbalworkout.com

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Definition

to get something from something else

(If the context doesn't otherwise indicate where something came from, it is generally from reasoning—especially deductive reasoning.)

She likes to win, but she doesn't derive pleasure from watching others lose.

derive = get

I derive pleasure from my work.

derive = get

He worked to derive the laws of nature.
derive stem cells from embryos
...use the calculations to derive engineering approximations for...
—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Thomas Jefferson et al. -- The Declaration of Independence

deriving = getting (telling where something comes from)

Atticus derived a reasonable income from the law.
Harper Lee -- To Kill a Mockingbird

derived = got (received)

An attractive, aristocratic Parisienne was deriving special pleasure from the game.
Elie Wiesel -- Night

deriving = getting

Okonkwo turned from one side to the other and derived a kind of pleasure from the pain his back gave him.
Chinua Achebe -- Things Fall Apart

derived = got

That person is the person from whom you derive your expectations, and the secret is solely held by that person and by me.
Charles Dickens -- Great Expectations

derive = get

In a house where there was little money and little food, your power was derived from who you could order around.
James McBride -- The Color of Water

derived = gotten

From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and .... This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure.
Edgar Allan Poe -- The Black Cat

derived = got

Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle.
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The Scarlet Letter
To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable.
Edgar Allan Poe -- The Black Cat

(Editor's note: The suffix "-able" means able to be. This is the same pattern you see in words like breakable, understandable, and comfortable.)

As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.
Charles Dickens -- Great Expectations
So forcibly did he dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit.
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The Scarlet Letter
At that age I became acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own country; but it was only when it had ceased to be in my power to derive its most important benefits from such a conviction that I perceived the necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages than that of my native country.
Mary Shelley -- Frankenstein
I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage.
Mary Shelley -- Frankenstein
Three-quarters of his vocabulary is derived from these regions, and they give an intimate flavour to expressions of his greatest joy as well as of his deepest indignation.
Erich Maria Remarque -- All Quiet on the Western Front

derived = gotten (comes from)

This unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself for seven years to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analysed and gloated over.
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The Scarlet Letter

deriving = getting

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