You Don’t Need to Be Able to Define a Word Before You Know What It Means

Winfried Corduan:

The possible objection that I cannot know what a term means unless I can provide an exhaustive definition for it rests on a thorough misunderstanding of the nature of language. We do not know what words mean because we know their definitions. Such a requirement would mean that all nonreflective language users (e.g. children) do not know the meaning of their talk—an absurd proposal. Surely definitions are quite helpful, e.g. when looking up the meaning of unknown words in dictionaries. But dictionaries also only report meaning; they do not legislate it.

—Winfried Corduan, Mysticism: An Evangelical Option? (1991; reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009), 22 n. 2.