Definition Drift
When a term's meaning shifts across time or contexts
Definition drift is the gradual shift in meaning of a term across time, schools, or fields (see also Semantic Drift and broader Drift Phenomena). It creates false agreement and false contradiction when the same word is used for different concepts, causing people to appear to argue about conclusions when they are actually talking past one another.
In Coscientist, drift is tracked explicitly by separating definition objects from claims. When a term changes meaning, old claims can be marked obsolete due to meaning loss or re-scoped instead of being silently mixed into a single "consensus."