How did the word "goth" change throught so many different meanings? (see details)?

Question

How did the word "goth" change from meaning a Germanic tribe, to a kind of architecture to a sort of Victorian novel, to a moderm subculture?
All these meanings are so far from eachother.

Answer 1

First there were the various tribes (i.e. Visigoths), and later, in the late Renaissance, older forms of architecture and were considered barbaric since they did not uphold Greco-Roman ideals, so they were termed Gothic. The Romantics of the enlightenment thought that the Gothic art and architecture were emotional and idealized them, so Gothic became a good thing to them, which is why various art forms, such as literature, were called Gothic. The modern Gothic subculture's name is due to the fact that modern goths are the cultural inheritors of the Romantics, as they share similar aesthetics and lifestyles.

Answer 2

the bit I remember is that it was the goth (visigoth) tribe and others used to insult architecture by saying it was ugly or not polished, like the goths, so that type of scary, not pretty architechture was called gothic. this came to be a general term for scary things.

Answer 3

Because people change, the world changes, and words have different meanings now.