Happy to agree that terminology may vary; for the purposes of my argument, I only need that a large fraction of physicists do use the term this way, and that that sense is meaningful and important.

> Also-also, there's plenty of tabletop fundamental experiments. Superconducting cavity based axion searches for instance.

Yes, sure, such experiments could find new fundamental physics. (And it should be funded!) But the Bayesian credence the overall field places on this happening is quite low, and certainly much lower than a next generation accelerator. No table-top experiments have found new fundamental physics in many decades.

(Of course, the accelerator is arguably a much worse deal given its extraordinary price.)