Can chosen definitions be wrong?

No, you can define a sound to mean whatever you want it to mean.

But there are at least 5 ways definitions can be lousy. Due to:

(1) Miscommunication. If you decide the word “dog” refers to cats people are going to be very confused.

[thread]

(2) Irrelevance: if you define a “dooooog” to be a dog with more than 5 legs, you’re not going to find it to be useful for much of anything. Dogs like that probably do exist, but are not something almost anyone ever needs to refer to.

(3) Unnaturalness: if you define “dogephant” to include all dogs smaller than 10 pounds AND all elephants more than 8000 pounds, you have not “carved reality at the joints.” Because of mixing unalike things, using your word makes thinking more muddled rather than clearer.

(4) Opinionated: if you define “dogmor” to be “those dog loving morons who somehow are convinced that dogs are better than cats,” then the definition imports with it a debatable opinion and emotional slant, causing its usage to be infected with that opinion/slant.

(5) Ambiguous: if by “dogdog” you mean anything that a dog can like, your word is hard to use and hard to think with, because dogs like such a range of things, and dogs have distinct preferences.

So no chosen definition is “wrong,” but plenty are “lousy”.

Choose definitions that (1) allow clear communication, (2) refer to things of interest, (3) carve reality at the joints, (4) don’t sneak in debatable opinions/slants, (5) are relatively unambiguous.