The true meaning of a word?

Question

Does the true meaning of a word depends on the vibration of the air that was caused by the specific sequence and order of the letters that formed this word when it went out of its source or does it depends on the amount and the quality of the energy that fueled that source or is it possible that the true meaning of a word depends solely on the vulnerability of its intended target ?

Answer 1

Etymology. There you will find the true meaning of the word. History of anything will reveal the true meaning of that particular subject.

Answer 2

It's a statistical grab-bag. The true meaning of a word is how the majority of the people define it in their minds at the time. If the definition source is the "Dictionary of Northern Idaho's 45-50 year old Guatemalan migrant labor population," then the understanding that group has of a word and the use to which they put it is the true meaning for them at the time of publication. This assumes thoroughly professional lexicographers with adequate resources compiled the work and did not attempt to introduce outside agendas.

Many dictionaries have been compiled by groups with agendas to impose and the meaning is taken to be true, even if the dictionary meaning has only tangential connection to how the word is understood in the target population.
Words are not just vessels of meaning, they are also operators and change the direction a person's mind take depending on the strength of the logical or emotional impact of the particular word in its context. The cultural and semantic context changes with time, location, individual perspective and capability. Good luck with the tracking of absolutes. They are illusive.

Answer 3

I agree with Carl p but I also think that some words have a universal conceptual meaning like infinity or really any number.
But come to think of it I saw a guy on TV that claimed to experience Numbers as colors shapes and textures so maybe I am way off.

Answer 4

None of the above.
First, every word in every language except proper nouns represents a metaphysical concept.
Second, which concept it represents, when words have more than one meaning, is contextual. The meaning of any word is called it "denotation," but the denote may be different under different contextual conditions.
You, the user of the word, must decide which contextual denote best fits the meaning of what you are trying to say. You may have to choose another word.
Dictionaries were not invented because of "vibrations of the air."

Answer 5

The true meaning of a word depends on the interpretation of the receiver; regardless of the intended "picture message", the one received is the one perceived.

Answer 6

The study of semantics or "the meaning, or an interpretation of the meaning, of a word, sign, sentence"

This comes from the sender's (speakers) point of view and conditions of their life and what the word really means to them from their personal experinces. It is very hard for people to understand the implied meaning of a word.

To me, when I say "you are being a pest" if means a particluar flashback from my past that you would not be able to relate to. You can come close to the idea, but that is all.

Answer 7

No word has true meaning because no word can ever truly describe what it is representing. For example if I was to tell you about a tree and you never heard of a tree before, I would have to tell you everything about that tree so you would know what it is. "Tree" by itself will not do it. I will have to tell you about the leaves, the bark, the roots, etc... A combination of words might suffice.

Answer 8

What have you been inhaling, drinking or taking mate? The true meaning of the word is that found in a dictionary... depending upon the context the word is in. Yeah sometimes things ARE that basic and simple!

Answer 9

In the social sciences a division is often made between theories of action and theories of meaning, where the first (e.g. Barth or Marx) ask what an act or thing is in itself, while the others (e.g. Lévi-Strauss or Geertz) ask what it means for us (see culture). Messages that are communicated between people are called meaning. Meaning can be understood and analyzed from a range of different viewpoints: semiotics, structuralism, cybernetics, performance theory, etc. The theories are often complex and use a rich vocabulary of (often ambiguous) terms: symbols, signs, metaphors, metonyms, icons, identities etc. (See information, cognition, culture, discourse, ethos, legitimacy, metacommunication.)

http://www.anthrobase.com/Dic/eng/def/meaning.htm

In linguistics, meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged by people when communicating through language. Restated, the communication of meaning is the purpose and function of language. A communicated meaning will (more or less accurately) replicate between individuals either a direct perception or some sentient derivation thereof. Meanings may take many forms, such as evoking a certain idea, or denoting a certain real-world entity. Linguistic meaning is studied in philosophy and semiotics, and especially in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, logic, and communication theory. Fields like sociolinguistics tend to be more interested in non-linguistic meanings. Linguistics lends itself to the study of linguistic meaning in the fields of semantics (which studies conventional meanings and how they are assembled) and pragmatics (which studies in how language is used by individuals). Literary theory, critical theory, and some branches of psychoanalysis are also involved in the discussion of meaning. Legal scholars and practitioners have discussed the nature of meaning of statutes, precedents and contracts since Roman law. However, this division of labor is not absolute, and each field depends to some extent upon the others.

Questions about how words and other symbols mean anything, and what it means that something is meaningful, are pivotal to an understanding of language. Since humans are in part characterized by their sophisticated ability to use language, it has also been seen as an essential subject to explore in order to understand human experience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_%28linguistic%29

The customary significance attached to the use of a word, phrase, or sentence, including both its literal sense and its emotive associations; what is elucidated in a definition. Philosophical theories of meaning endeavor to explain the conditions under which an expression comes to have internal significance and external reference.

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/m5.htm#meaning

Speaking of the need to declare the more common interpretation of the reference of an utterance as its normal meaning, Fish says 'To admit as much is not to weaken my argument by reinstating the category of the normal, because the category as it appears in that argument is not transcendental but institutional; and while no institution is so universally in force and so perdurable that the meanings it enables will be normal for ever, some institutions or forms of life are so widely lived in that for a great many people the meanings the enable seem "naturally" available and it takes a special effort to see that they are the products of circumstances. The obviousness of the utterance's meaning is not a function of the values its words have in a linguistic system that is independent of context; rather, it is because the words are heard as already embedded in a context that they have a meaning that Hirsch can then cite as obvious... it is impossible even to think of a sentence independently of a context, and when we are asked to consider a sentence for which no context has been specified, we will automatically hear it in the context in which it has been most often encountered' .

http://www.sil.org/~radneyr/humanities/M.htm

emotive meaning:

Attitudes and feelings associated with the use of a word, phrase, or sentence, in contrast with its literal significance.

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/e.htm#emov

Answer 10

'Words, and everlasting words'.

'Words, spoken in haste... such a waste of a good life'.

Words create a picture of what maybe expressed to whom ever receives the spoken portrait. They can be very colourful and woe-ful, full of all the emotions that one feels at any given moment. A gift so seldom shared meanfully.