A stipulative definition assigns a meaning to a word for the first time. This may involve either coining a new word or giving a new meaning to an old word. The purpose of a stip- ulative definition is usually to replace a more complex expression with a simpler one.
The need for a stipulative definition is often occasioned by some new phenomenon or development.
Examples:
For example, many years ago lions were crossbred with tigers. The word “tigon” was selected to name the offspring of male tiger and a female lion, and “liger” was selected to name the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger. When a zebra was crossbred with a donkey, the offspring was called a “zeedonk.” Crossbreeding a lime with a kumquat produced a fruit that was called a “limequat,” and crossbreeding a plum with an apricot produced a fruit called a “plumcot” and a “plout.”
Another use for stipulative definitions is to set up secret codes.
For example, during World War II, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” was the Japanese code name that triggered the attack on Pearl Harbor. “Wotan” was the German code name for a radar system; “Golfplatz” signified Great Britain; and “Operation Sealion” was the plan to invade Great Britain. “Operation Crossbow” was the British code name for countermeasures against the V-2 rocket; “Manhattan Project” signified the American effort to develop the atomic bomb; and “Operation Overlord” was the code name for the planned invasion of Normandy.
More recently, corporations have employed code names to keep their proj- ects secret from competitors. Intel has named its central processing units “Willamette,” “Deschutes,” and “Clackamas”—all of them pertinent to Oregon, where the units were designed. And Apple has named its operating systems after big cats: “Snow Leopard,” “Lion,” and “Mountain Lion.”
Because people are continually coming up with new creations, whether it be food concoctions, inventions, modes of behavior, or kinds of apparel, stipulative definitions are continually being introduced to name them. The invention of computers provides a prime example. Today we have dozens of new terms or new uses of old terms that did not exist a few years ago: “cyberspace,” “e-mail,” “browser,” “hacker,” “dot-com,” “hardware,” “software,” “download,” “website,” “webmaster,” “server,” “boot,” “bar code,” “mouse,” “modem,” “cookies,” “spam,” “Blackberry,” “iPhone,” “Bluetooth,” “iPad,” “ Twitter,” “tweet,” “texting,” and “sexting”—to name just a few. Earlier, in the area of biology, when a certain excretion of the pancreas was refined to its pure form, the word “insulin” was chosen to name it, and the word “penicillin” was chosen for an antibacterial substance produced by certain Penicillium molds. In mathematics, the symbol “10 5 ” was chosen as a simple substitute for “10 3 10 3 10 3 10 3 10.”
Because a stipulative definition is a completely arbitrary assignment of a meaning to a word for the first time, there can be no such thing as a “true” or “false” stipula- tive definition. Furthermore, for the same reason, a stipulative definition cannot provide any new information about the subject matter of the definiendum. The fact that the word “tigon” was selected to replace “offspring of a male tiger and a female lion” tells us nothing new about the nature of the animal in question. One stipula- tive definition may, however, be more or less convenient or more or less appropriate than another.