Everyday Irrationality: Conflation of Cause and Effect

Not in your dictionary! i.e. they have only added that to British English, not American English.

I'm still annoyed that people have misused the word enormity often enough that the misuse is now considered a definition. I get that language evolves, but I feel cheated having known what i t actually meant.

Btw is there a typo in this "but many dictionaries now include words"? Isn't that kinda what dictionaries have always had in them?

I was Jumping to Conclusions :) One of the first definitions that came up for me was the Cambridge Dictionary. I also read a few secondary definitions that appeared to allow for "words" being violence, but it was unclear. Perhaps they are the only source that added this so far. I do hope others do not follow.

I cleared up the "typo"... meant "words" was added to the dictionary definition. Thanks.

I've had occasion to challenge word definitions, sometimes on the basis of usage, sometimes on spelling/consistency. "iatrogenic" is a word for harm caused by a physician, while "nosocomial" is for harm caused by (in) a hospital.  I appealed for the word "nosocomic" on the basis of consistency with the "ic" ending of iatrogenic, and the rejection from the editors was that "nosocomial" was the more frequent usage.

Thus, dictionaries of English words can be seen, not as arbiters but as recorders, based on some algorithm of usage frequency. Only France has a national academy afaik, who judge word usage as a propos (or non).

But I can argue, for example, that hate speech produces psychological and physical harm and should therefore be considered a form of violence, and if we can agree on that then the dictionary definition should be changed (that's two arguments)

I am going to try to parse your logic here. Let me know if I have made any mistakes.

P1: If an act produces psychological harm, then it should be considered violent.

P2: Hate speech produces psychological harm.

C1: Therefore, it should be considered violent.

Your first premise is very questionable, because a  lot  of things can produce psychological harm. If I recently lose someone to cancer and somebody makes a joke about it, my feelings may be hurt by that. This would mean, under your logic, that a person has committed violence against me. If I insult a person, they may take offence, and now I am guilty of violence. Purposefully offensive comedy and satire also cause offence and thus these are violent acts.

Because of this, we now have moral and legal problems. I am going to assume you also believe violent acts should be punished. This would potentially criminalise all of the above acts - simply because 'psychological' harm was committed, whether there was intent to do so or not. Since 'violence' now includes relatively benign acts, like satire that offended people, you have made the definition incongruous by expanding it thus. You need an additional qualifier for this to make sense.

 Consider cases we've seen of hate speech on the internet lately, and try and tell me that when you see little kids crying, or you see the physiological results of the psychological reactions of fear and anger, that such speech did not cause real harm, even if physical violence did not occur.

I haven't seen any kids crying; then again, they are kids, their emotional state is going to be less consistent than an adult. 

This site should be renamed Parsing Unlimited. Here, from Miriam Webster:

Definition of violence
 
1a: the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy
b: an instance of violent treatment or procedure
2: injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation : OUTRAGE
3a: intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force: the violence of the storm
b: vehement feeling or expression : FERVOR  also : an instance of such action or feeling
c: a clashing or jarring quality : DISCORDANCE
4: undue alteration (as of wording or sense in editing a text)

Note the parts that I emphasized. And consider number 4 - you can commit violence even against my post by unduly quoting or misrepresenting it. I'm tired. You have your concept of the word "violence", I have mine, but you can argue with Webster.

English also accepts word with diametrically opposing meanings, so that sanction can mean tolerate/permit/accept and also reject/respond with punishment.

When "violence" can include the "mind-state" of the speaker of words, I think we work ourselves into a bad corner (a la "Minority Report"). 

"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me" is a better view, imo, than accepting a Humpty-Dumpty warp by which "a word means what I want it to mean, neither more nor less".  That's for Lewis Carroll, not for a civil society, imo.