Terrific: 1667, "frightening," from L. terrificus "causing terror or fear," from terrere "fill with fear" (see terrible) + root of facere "to make" (see factitious). Weakened sensed of "very great, severe" (e.g. terrific headache) appeared 1809; colloquial sense of "excellent" began 1888.
First use is not the permanent meaning. Language is fluid.
Fortunately English does not have a ruling body that declares ex cathedra what a word must mean. And because of this, words shift and change as time goes on. It doesn't much matter what the originator of a coinage had in mind as the definition, but in this case the author clearly wanted a word to define a diet:
We should all consider carefully what our Group, and our magazine, and ourselves, shall be called. 'Non-dairy' has become established as a generally understood colloquialism, but like 'non-lacto' it is too negative. Moreover it does not imply that we are opposed to the use of eggs as food. We need a name that suggests what we do eat, and if possible one that conveys the idea that even with all animal foods taboo, Nature still offers us a bewildering assortment from which to choose. 'Vegetarian' and 'Fruitarian' are already associated with societies that allow the 'fruits'(!) of cows and fowls, therefore it seems we must make a new and appropriate word. As this first issue of our periodical had to be named, I have used the title "The Vegan News". Should we adopt this, our diet will soon become known as a VEGAN diet, and we should aspire to the rank of VEGANS.
So I'm glad we finally settled that. "Vegan" refers to diet,
and many vegans ALSO base their diet on moral grounds and exclude all animal products. However, that aspect of veganism was not expressly mentioned in the "Wanted - A Name" paragraph quoted above, and is not a necessary feature of "veganism".
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