What is the meaning of words in the English language?

Stamp, J., stated in Bourne v. Norwich Crematorium Ltd., [1967] 2 All E.R. 576, at p. 578: “English words derive colour from those which surround them. Sentences are not mere collections of words to be taken out of the sentence, defined separately by reference to the dictionary or decided cases, and then put back again into the sentence with the meaning which you have assigned to them as separate words, so as to give the sentence or phrase a meaning which as a sentence or phrase it cannot bear without distortion of the English language.”