Driven

Driven is the past participle of the verb drive and is commonly used as an adjective. In everyday language, it denotes motivation and determination to achieve goals. It can also describe something powered by a mechanism.

As a psychological and social descriptor, a driven person is highly motivated and goal-oriented; such individuals are often described as ambitious, persistent, and focused. The term can carry positive connotations of dedication, but in some contexts may imply excessive drive or rigidity.

In business and data contexts, phrases like data-driven, rule-driven, or market-driven describe decision-making processes that rely on data, rules, or market signals rather than intuition. In technology, driven can describe systems influenced by external input, such as a driven oscillator or a motor driven by electrical current.

In physics, a driven system is one subjected to an external force or input that drives its behavior; a driven oscillator is a standard example in which the system responds to a periodic driving force. The term also appears in engineering, where driven components or processes are powered by a specified input.