If I read the dictionary definition of freedom and then read the dictionary definition of yodeling and ask which definition means freedom few will confuse the two. But if I read a political tract by an Objectivist called “What Freedom Means” and than read one by a Marxist with the same title this is another kind of meaning altogether. Why? Because the latter revolves around the meaning of the word as it situated out in the world of actual human interaction and the former as it is situated in the dictionary between freeborn and freefall.
If you stumble upon 100 discussions and debates swirling around the meaning of human freedom how many of them will revolve around the dictionary definition? Probably none. People did not invent words in order to accummulate a “vocabulary”; they invented them because they are useful in describing or evaluating the world around them. They situate the words “out in the world”. And the truly intriguing and invigorating conversations are almost always about connecting the dots between the definitions and the actual social, political and economic application of the definitions.