Given the particular situation, when we see a hand raised most of us can catch the meaning and respond correctly. Similarly we can guess from the context whether the conversation is about romantic love, lust, long term married love, the love of a mother for her child, good Samaritan love, friendship love, or the love of ice cream. But the context alone is still insufficient to clarify meaning. If we saw ten people praying in the same church we might assume that they are talking to God. But we could only know what they meant by asking what kind of a God they were praying to, and their reasons for praying at that particular time.
Similar problems emerge with words like beauty and beautiful.
Artists and musicians have notoriously different ideas on the subject. Like God or Love, Beauty functions as a sign that is empty of meaning until we give it a context and indicate some metaphors that connect with it. If the word God is used in the context of emperor worship we imagine that we are talking about the supreme power in a large area. But we still do not know what to do with the word until we flesh it out with some other metaphors. We might need to include the idea of worship by the need to bow down or offer incense to a statue.