What you say is true ONLY within a specific context. Your statement is never true in the "world" or "universe". Ask some linguists - language is not math, it i

What you say is true ONLY within a specific context. Your statement is never true in the "world" or "universe". Ask some linguists - language is not math, it is more like biology. Context matters. People decide for themselves. e have no UN body that defines for each and every person in the world what something means. What you refer to is that some groups of people WILL indeed define something, but that is for their own special communication in their field. Nobody is bound to that definition either, even the very same people may use the same word much more loosely in a different context. We have lots and lots of words that have different meanings in different context and/or to different people. That's okay -language is as human as we are. Nobody owns language. People decide for themselves what they want and how they use it. The "authorities" - the linguists compiling things like dictionaries, do so by looking at how people use something, and then they document the many different usages as they appear. You can only dictate language when you have a means of control over people outside of language, or if you get others to agree. . In response to mark-r: Meanings change all the time, often the original idea is not even part of a new meaning any more. So asking what someone who first used a word meant is useless too.