Yes, because meaning is ultimately metaphor and meanings and metaphors change over time; I'm a fan of etymology and shifts of meaning over time. It's of course an impossible feat; how do you use a 21st century meaning to describe a 15th century meaning of the same word without contaminating the past with the future of that past? But that's what makes it fun to try. smile emoticon vagus is latin for uncertain, and wandering. I think wandering is likely a stronger tie-in to something 'physical' - if you want to get the 'meat' of the meaning, even a word such as "vague", bringing things to their physical roots is VERY useful. Also, as an adjective, it describes a noun. Vagueness [of what]? If you take away the "what", you've then Personified it, turned Vague into a Person, as if a Greek God of old. Such the same happens when speaking of Love as if it is a noun. It's not a noun, even if we use it as such, as there is no embodiment of Love. SO perhaps, this all is simply a case of scribing a quality without a thing to be qualified, speaking of it "as if" it has substance of its own, when perhaps it does not.