Processes of amelioration and pejoration-opracowanie

Process of amelioration This is then words improve, or are elevated, in meaning.
The word luxury originally meant `lasciviousness' or `lust'. This then got watered down to refer to an indulgence in whatever in classy or expensive.
Today, the strongly negative connotations are largely lost and we use it to mean something like `refined enjoyment'.
There can also be opposite, pejoration, when words degrade in meaning.
This of course led to today `foolish'.
If you know Danish and German, you might recognize the cognate words salig and selig. (Cognate words are related to each other in terms of derivation).
Not surprisingly, Danish and German have had the meanings developing separately: the Danish means something like happy for religious reasons (like blessedness) and the German can mean happy because of drunkenness!
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