Language/vocabulary: 'context'

The word context can be used for different situations. I will use it to talk about words.

If a word's meaning is understood from context, it means you understand the meaning because of the situation - who is speaking, what they are talking about, etc.

For example, look at this sentence:
"He's good."

What does 'good' mean here? What are they talking about? If we only see this sentence, we don't know. But if we look at it in context, we can understand the meaning.

"How's John?"
"He's good." (=He's fine.)

"Wow, look at him! He runs so fast!"
"Yeah. He's good." (=He's skilled.)

"Is John behaving well at school?"
"Yes. He's good. He's a good little boy." (He's well-behaved.)

Another example are expressions that can have different meanings. For example, 'work out' can mean 'solve' ('I worked out the answer') or 'exercise' ('I worked out at the gym'). Until we put that expression in context - in a sentence - we do not know the meaning.

I'll give you another example. See this post about being drunk? There are lots of words that mean 'drunk'. However, some of these words can also be used to mean 'affected by drugs'.

For example, 'he's wasted' could mean 'he really drank too much' OR 'he took strong drugs'. How do we know what 'wasted' means? We understand it from context. Where is he? What does he look like? What happened before we said 'he's wasted'?

If he's at a bar and had ten bottles of beer, it probably means 'drunk'. If he has symptoms of taking a particular drug, 'wasted' probably means 'affected by drugs'.