Editing Stipulative definition (section)

==On stipulative definitions==
Stipulative definitions of existing terms are useful in making theoretical arguments, or stating specific cases. For example:
*Suppose we say that to love someone is to be willing to die for that person.
*Take "human" to mean any member of the species ''Homo sapiens''.
*For the purposes of argument, we will define a "student" to be "a person under 18 enrolled in a local school".

Some of these are also [[precising definition]]s, a subtype of stipulative definition that may not contradict but only extend the [[lexical definition]] of a term. [[Theoretical definition]]s, used extensively in [[science]] and philosophy, are similar in some ways to stipulative definitions (although theoretical definitions are somewhat normative,{{Elaborate|date=June 2024}} more like [[persuasive definitions]]).<ref name=ConciseIntro/>

Many holders of controversial and highly charged opinions use stipulative definitions to attach the emotional or other [[connotation]]s of a word to the meaning they would like to give it; for example, defining "murder" as "the killing of any living thing for any reason". The other side of such an argument is likely to use a different stipulative definition for the same term: "the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought" or "the premeditated killing of a human being". The lexical definition in such a case is likely to fall somewhere in between.

When a stipulative definition is confused with a lexical definition within an argument there is a risk of [[equivocation]].