derivation

Also known as morphological derivation, word derivation, derivational morphology

in linguistics, the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing one

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Morphological derivation, in linguistics, is the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix, such as un- or -ness. For example, unhappy and happiness derive from the root word happy.

It is differentiated from inflection, which is the modification of a word to form different grammatical categories without changing its core meaning or lexical category: determines, determining, and determined are from the root determine.