Why did Jacques Derrida argue that the meaning of a word is never fully present?

Jacques Derrida argued that the meaning of a word is never fully present because he rejected the traditional view that linguistic meaning is fixed by an original idea or intention in the mind of a speaker.12

Building on the work of linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, Derrida maintained that meaning is determined by the "play" of differences between words. Because a word’s meaning relies on its contrast with other words—which in turn rely on contrasts with still other words—meaning is never static or self-contained.12

To describe this process, Derrida coined the term différance, which signifies both a difference and an act of deferring. He argued that meaning is "endlessly deferred" in an infinite chain of references, where each word contains only the "traces" of the meanings on which it depends. Consequently, he challenged the "metaphysics of presence"—the tendency in Western philosophy to assume that truth or meaning can exist independently of language as a stable, fully present essence.12