Arbitrary Quote by Roy Blount, Jr

“A word's meaning depends not so much on its linguistic past but rather on the place the word occupies in relation to the general…

— Anonymous

At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.

— William Safire

A word is an arbitrary label - that's the foundation of linguistics. But many people think otherwise. They believe in word magic: that uttering…

— Steven Pinker

Our words are, as a general rule, filled by the people to whom we address them with a meaning which those people derive from…

— Marcel Proust

I think when dictionaries define words, there's a sort of hair-splitting that to most people doesn't make any sense, which is we're not describing…

— Kory Stamper

Words take on many different meanings.

— Erin McKean

A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.

— N. Scott Momaday

Words represent things but not the things itself.

— EwshyCrazyness

Words derive their power from the original word.

— Meister Eckhart

The way I write, words can means lots of different things.

— Beth Orton

Words have their own hierarchy, their own protocol, their own artistic titles, their own plebeian stigmas.

— Jose Saramago

The dictionary is based on the hypothesis -- obviously an unproven one -- that languages are made up of equivalent synonyms.

— Jorge Luis Borges