Etymological Fallacy

The underlying misconception dates to antiquity — ancient Greek philosophers debated whether words had "true" meanings tied to their origins, as recorded in Plato's dialogue Cratylus. Modern linguistics dismantled this notion beginning with Ferdinand de Saussure's 1916 Course in General Linguistics, which established that meaning is determined by contemporary usage, not historical roots. Scottish biblical scholar James Barr brought the fallacy to wider attention in his 1961 book The Semantics of Biblical Language, criticizing theologians who derived doctrine from Greek and Hebrew word etymologies rather than contextual meaning.