Question

What are some words that have had a traditional meaning but have been redefined by more recent culture?

Answer 1

• There are so many examples of how words have changed over the years, going back hundreds of years. For example, the word "awful" used to mean "full of awe." Words also change from one generation to the next. There are many reasons for this, but slang and technology have certainly contributed to the process.
• Long ago, if you were naughty, you had naught or nothing. Then it came to mean evil or immoral, and now you are just badly behaved.
  
• A bachelor was a young knight before the word came to refer to someone who had achieved the lowest rank at a university — and it lives on in that meaning in today’s B.A. and B.S degrees.
• The word whose meaning has changed most strikingly in recent times is the word "gay." When my parents were growing up in the 1950s, this word still meant "happy" or "carefree." Songs in popular movies could still refer to someone feeling gay. This is inconceivable today as the word "gay" has come to be used almost solely in reference to homosexuality.