This idea is essential to understanding how meaning is "assigned".

• It is created by humane intention
• It is defined in cascading levels of abstraction -- from broader inclusive categories to narrower
• This definition is stipulative, and "assigned" by the intending person/speaker
• It is context specific
• Because word meaning in most or all cases is subject to misinterpretation because it is not rigid and its implications are too broad, human beings can and do "drill down" across levels of specificity until an "acceptable" level of understanding is reached.

This below Wikipedia definition and discussion of stipulation does not represent this idea very clearly, and presumes that "the dictionary definition" can realistically be assumed to be authoritative. In the real world of context-specific human conversation, this is not the reality. It might work in Scrabble to resolve disputes, but not in real human relationship or negotiations.

Thu, May 6, 2021

A stipulative definition is a type of definition in which a new or currently existing term is given a new specific meaning for the purposes of argument or discussion in a given context. When the term already exists, this definition may, but does not necessarily, contradict the dictionary (lexical) definition of the term. Because of this, a stipulative definition cannot be "correct" or "incorrect"; it can only differ from other definitions, but it can be useful for its intended purpose.[1][2]

For example, in the riddle of induction by Nelson Goodman, "grue" was stipulated to be "a property of an object that makes it appear green if observed before some future time t, and blue if observed afterward". "Grue" has no meaning in standard English; therefore, Goodman created the new term and gave it a stipulative definition.

On stipulative definitions Stipulative definitions of existing terms are useful in making theoretical arguments, or stating specific cases. For example:

Suppose we say that to love someone is to be willing to die for that person. Take "human" to mean any member of the species Homo sapiens. For the purposes of argument, we will define a "student" to be "a person under 18 enrolled in a local school". Some of these are also precising definitions, a subtype of stipulative definition that may not contradict but only extend the lexical definition of a term. Theoretical definitions, used extensively in science and philosophy, are similar in some ways to stipulative definitions (although theoretical definitions are somewhat normative, more like persuasive definitions).[2]

Many holders of controversial and highly charged opinions use stipulative definitions in order to attach the emotional or other connotations of a word to the meaning they would like to give it; for example, defining "murder" as "the killing of any living thing for any reason". The other side of such an argument is likely to use a different stipulative definition for the same term: "the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought" or "the premeditated killing of a human being". The lexical definition in such a case is likely to fall somewhere in between.

When a stipulative definition is confused with a lexical definition within an argument there is a risk of equivocation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stipulative_definition