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How did W.V.O. Quine criticize verificationism and the idea of fixed word meanings?

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Austrian postage stamp featuring a portrait of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, with German text above and below, and a denomination of 5 schillings. — Philosophy of language An Austrian stamp depicting Ludwig Wittgenstein.

W.V.O. Quine challenged the core tenets of logical positivism by rejecting the idea that language has fixed meanings or a direct, one-to-one relationship with experience.12

Critique of Verificationism

Quine argued against the verificationist view that individual sentences can be verified by specific experiences. He proposed that scientific theories function as a "web" of interconnected beliefs. Because any single sentence is embedded within this larger system, "recalcitrant experience" does not force the rejection of a specific statement; instead, one can maintain any sentence by making adjustments elsewhere in the theoretical web. Consequently, he rejected the analytic-synthetic distinction, arguing that no statement is immune to revision in light of new evidence.213

Critique of Fixed Meanings

Quine contended that there is no "fact of the matter" regarding what words mean. Through his thought experiment of "radical translation," he demonstrated that multiple, non-equivalent translation manuals can account for all available behavioral evidence equally well. Because meaning is underdetermined by empirical data, he concluded that the notion of a determinate, fixed meaning is scientifically useless.312