All 30 Uses
derive
in
The American Language, by Mencken
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- An early authority, John G. E. Heckwelder, argued that it was derived from an Indian mispronunciation of the word /English/.†
*derived = got
- Yet others derive it from the Scotch /yankie/, meaning a gigantic falsehood.†
derive = get
- A fourth party derive it from the Dutch, and cite an alleged Dutch model for "Yankee Doodle," beginning "/Yanker/ didee doodle down."†
- An elaborate dictionary of words derived from the Indian languages, compiled by the late W. R. Gerard, is in the possession of the Smithsonian Institution, but on account of a shortage of funds it remains in manuscript.†
derived = got
- /Banjo/ seems to be derived from /bandore/ or /bandurria/, modern French and Spanish forms of /tambour/, respectively.†
- These verbs have entered into the very fibre of the American vulgate, and so have many nouns derived from them, /e.†
- The English meaning of the word is preserved in /mad-house/ and /mad-dog/, but I have often noticed that American rustics, employing the latter term, derive from it a vague notion, not that the dog is demented, but that it is in a simple fury.†
derive = get
- Farmer and Henley list /corned/ and /jagged/ among English synonyms, but the former is obviously an Americanism derived from /corn-whiskey/ or /corn-juice/, and Thornton says that the latter originated on this side of the Atlantic also.†
derived = got
- The former, according to the Standard Dictionary, is derived from the German /laufen/; another authority says that it originated in a German mispronounciation of /lover/, /i.†
- /Bum/ was originally /bummer/, and apparently derives from the German /bummler/.†
derives = gets
- [34] /Bower/, as used in cards, is an Americanism derived from the German /bauer/, meaning the jack†
derived = got
- Schele de Vere derives it from the French /cabane/, but it seems rather more likely that it is from the Irish /shebeen/.†
derives = gets
- Most etymologists derive the word from the Dutch /doop/, a sauce.†
derive = get
- It is commonly derived from /primero/, the name of a somewhat similar game, popular in England in the sixteenth century, but the relation seems rather fanciful.†
derived = got
- Schele de Vere says that /poker/, in the sense of a hobgoblin, was still in use in 1871, but he derives the name of the game from the French /poche/ (=/pouche/, /pocket/).†
derives = gets
- Barrère and Leland, rejecting all these guesses, derive /poker/ from the Yiddish /pochger/, which comes in turn from the verb /pochgen/, signifying to conceal winnings or losses.†
derive = get
- [16] All authorities save one seem to agree that this verb is a pure Americanism, and that it is derived from the name of Charles Lynch, a Virginia justice of the peace, who jailed many Loyalists in 1780 without warrant in law†
derived = got
- This answer would mystify nine Englishmen out of ten, for in the first place it involves the use of the flat American /a/ in /can't/ and in the second place it applies an unfamiliar name to the vessel that every Englishman knows as a /tin/, and then adds to the confusion by deriving a verb from the substantive.†
deriving = getting
- The word /soccer/ is derived from /association/; the rules of the game were [Pg112] established by the London Football Association.†
derived = got
- White labored long and valiantly to convince Americans that the adjective derived from /president/ should be without the /i/ in its last syllable, following the example of /incidental/, /regimental/, /monumental/, /governmental/, /oriental/, /experimental/ and so on; but in vain, for /presidential/ is now perfectly good English.†
- Of late the theory has been put forward that it is derived from an Indian word, /okeh/, signifying "so be it," and Dr. Woodrow Wilson is said to support this theory and to use /okeh/ in endorsing government papers, but I am unaware of the authority upon which the etymology is based.†
- Here the national speech is powerfully influenced by Southern dialectical variations, which in turn probably derive partly from French example and partly from the linguistic limitations of the negro.†
derive = get
- [2] The Oxford Dictionary, following the late J. H. Trumbull, the well-known authority on Indian languages, derives the word from the Algonquin /cau-cau-as-u/, one who advises†
derives = gets
- But most other authorities, following Pickering, derive it from /caulkers/.†
derive = get
- Verbals are words that are derived from Verbs and express action or being without asserting it.†
derived = got
- It derives its principles, not from the subtle logic [Pg185] of learned and stupid men, but from the rough-and-ready logic of every day.†
derives = gets
- Some of the more familiar conjugations of verbs in the American common speech, as recorded by Charters or Lardner or derived from my own collectanea, are here set down: /Present/ /Preterite/ /Perfect Participle/ Am was bin (or ben)[20] Attack attackted attackted (Be)[21] was bin (or ben) [20] Beat beaten beat Become[22] become became Begin begun began Bend bent bent Bet bet bet Bind bound bound Bite bitten bit Bleed bled bled Blow blowed (or blew) blowed (or blew) Break broken broke Bring brought (or brung, or brang) brung Broke (passive) broke broke Build built built Burn burnt[23] burnt Burst[24] —— —— Bust busted busted Buy bought (or boughten) bought (or boughten) Can could could'a Catch†
derived = got
- The word /slacker/, recently come into good usage in the United States as a designation for an unsuccessful shirker of conscription, is a substantive derived from the English verb /to slack/, which was born as university slang and remains so to this day.†
- /To laugh in your sleeve/ is idiom because it arises out of a natural situation; it is a metaphor derived from the picture of one raising his sleeve to his face to hide a smile, a metaphor which arose naturally enough in early periods when sleeves were long and flowing; but /to talk through your hat/ is slang, not only because it is new, but also because it is a grotesque exaggeration of the truth.†
- The English newspapers, with the exception of a few anomalies such as the /Pink-Un/, lean in the other direction; their fault is not slanginess, but an otiose ponderosity—in Dean Alford's words, "the insisting on calling common things by uncommon names; changing our ordinary short Saxon nouns and verbs for long words derived from the Latin."†
Definitions:
-
(1)
(derive) 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.) - (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)