The definition of Meaning

We ask the question commonly in everyday life, to something – “what does that mean?” “What does it mean?” ….

Meaning of something is the commonsensical extent of implication, of that thing.

Consider this statement – 

John gave a ball to Jack.

Now, consider the word ‘GAVE’. 

There are 3 ‘levels of implication’ from it.

LEVEL 1 – immediately near it – the definition of GAVE :

The physical mechanical description of the action of giving.

LEVEL 3 – far away from it – a faraway implication of GAVE : 

Say, so and so changes took place in the muscle joints. OR the brain worked in a certain way to enable the action. These are very advanced. (There will be many such).

&

*LEVEL 2* – somewhere at a commonsensically decided distance from it, along the line of implication :

Ownership of ball got transferred OR location of the ball changed.

These 2 implications of LEVEL 2, are the answer to the question – ‘what does it mean?’ to the event – John gave a ball to Jack. They are the MEANING of the event. They are commonsense. They are at “just the right level”.