- You have a word, and it has a meaning. The nature of this kind of thing is that this word will be used more often in some contexts than in other contexts.
- Someone who knows the meaning perfectly well extends it a bit in a straightforward way. For example, "illuminate" primarily means to shine light on something, making that thing easier to see. But it can be used in an extended sense to refer to making a "murky" concept easier to understand. Anyone who knows the primary meaning will understand why the secondary meaning makes sense.
- So now we have one context where the word is likely to mean one thing, and another context where the same word is likely to mean something a little bit different.
- But the world changes. The old context may become less common. As that happens, what was a metaphorically extended meaning may turn into the ordinary primary meaning.
- All of this happened without anyone learning the wrong meaning of the word. It was always being used correctly. But the meaning shifted anyway.
Thank you, I enjoyed your illuminating comments, and for the search phrase "semantic shift". I should have been more cognizant of metaphorical extension, having recently read [0] which claims "tall" went from "swift" to "vertically large" via "skillful" ("tall of hand") then "exaggerated" ("tall story").
- You have a word, and it has a meaning. The nature of this kind of thing is that this word will be used more often in some contexts than in other contexts.
- Someone who knows the meaning perfectly well extends it a bit in a straightforward way. For example, "illuminate" primarily means to shine light on something, making that thing easier to see. But it can be used in an extended sense to refer to making a "murky" concept easier to understand. Anyone who knows the primary meaning will understand why the secondary meaning makes sense.
- So now we have one context where the word is likely to mean one thing, and another context where the same word is likely to mean something a little bit different.
- But the world changes. The old context may become less common. As that happens, what was a metaphorically extended meaning may turn into the ordinary primary meaning.
- All of this happened without anyone learning the wrong meaning of the word. It was always being used correctly. But the meaning shifted anyway.