Archaic KJV Word
Word
Modern equivalent: unit of language
What Was Lost
The creative power. Hebrew davar was not a sound but an event -- when God spoke, the davar accomplished what it described. 'Let there be light' was not a wish but a davar that created light. Greek logos was the rational intelligence holding the cosmos together. 'The Word was God' meant the creative, ordering, reality-making power of the universe was a person.
Closest Survivor in Modern English
Logos (used untranslated in theology because 'word' is tragically inadequate)
Peak Usage (1611)
KJV John 1:1 -- 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God'
Died still used but deflated (~1800)
Hebrew davar ('word/thing/event/active reality') and Greek logos ('rational principle/divine reason/ordering intelligence of the cosmos') collapsed into 'a unit of language.' The Word that created the universe became a dictionary entry.
What Replaced It
“term”
Linguistic unit; davar was simultaneously a word and the thing it described -- speaking created reality
“statement”
Human communication; logos was the rational ordering principle of all existence
“message”
Information transfer; the Word was a person -- the creative agent through whom everything exists