In modern linguistics, etymology is given far less weight than it was in the pre-scientific days of philology. So no, etymology is not "always" relevant; argume

In modern linguistics, etymology is given far less weight than it was in the pre-scientific days of philology. So no, etymology is not "always" relevant; arguments based on etymology are typically given weight only in historical contexts (e.g. tracing language evolution, or lexical borrowings). They give very little insight about present meaning, and especially not about pragmatics.