Other forms: derivatives
Something derivative copies too closely from what came before. A derivative film, derivative music, a derivative style. It is always a criticism, and a fairly cutting one: the work is not bad, it is second-hand.
The neutral sense is the older one and it is still everywhere in technical writing: a derivative is something derived from something else. In chemistry, a derivative is a compound made from another; in finance, a derivative is a contract whose value comes from an underlying asset, and derivatives are what caused a good deal of the 2008 crisis; in mathematics, the derivative measures a rate of change. None of those carries any criticism at all.
1adjectivederivativeCopying too closely from earlier work.
“The novel is competent and completely derivative.”
synonyms: unoriginal, imitative
2noundevelopedSomething made or developed from something else.
“The drug is a derivative of a compound found in bark.”
3nounfinanceIn finance, a contract whose value depends on an underlying asset.
“He spent ten years trading derivatives.”
derivative is a quality of being taken from something else.
Latin derivare meant to draw water off from a stream — de-, away, plus rivus, a stream, the same word as river. Everything derived is water led away from a source, which is exactly the complaint the critical sense makes.
Latin
dērīvātus
Middle French
dérivatif
English, today
derivative
Built from
From Middle French dérivatif, from Latin dērīvātus, perfect passive participle of dērīvō (“to derive”). Related to derive; by surface analysis, derive + -ative.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA