People use words for all kinds of things. A long time ago, I had a big debate in the general section of this forum with a guy who claimed that the term 'werewolf' is supposed to be some kind of therian heritage and that he and other therians had the right to use that word to describe themselves. The bottom line is: we humans developed terms to describe certain things, be it mythological or otherwise, that share certain characteristics. You could call a chair a table, and you can probably even use it as a table if you're creative, but that doesn't make it a proper description for that particular subject.Chris wrote:If it combines the dominant features of man and wolf, it could be called a man-wolf. Even if it's not biologically related to wolves and/or humans, it can still be colloquially referred to as a werewolf because it appears to be a cross between a human and wolf.Morkulv wrote:Also, isn't the true definition of the word 'werewolf' a combination between man and wolf? How the hell does that work as a seperate species?
Having said that, I do personally prefer the term werewolf to refer to a human that changes, or was changed, into a wolf-like creature (with bestial behavior). But semantically, the word can be much broader than that.
I've looked into several dictionary answers, and on Wikipedia, and the term werewolf more or less applies to what you described in your last bit. So with that, I take it that the word werewolf is a proper description for anything that resembles that.