In this case, as I've documented, the way many modern religious studies people use the word is closely aligned with the etymology I gave. Whether that etymology is historically accurate has been disputed, but the fact that people use the word to mean basically the same thing as the purported etymology is not.

says who other than you?

Anyone with any knowledge of linguistics? Even when the etymologies are correct (and they rarely are) they're entirely orthogonal to what words actually mean in practice today because language is only defined by its use (and is highly contextual).

Argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy.