You already do this

Counting more carefully was never going to work. A longer memory would have helped that last sentence hold together, but it does nothing about the deeper problem. dog and puppy are still two unrelated entries, and no amount of counting brings them closer.

Every dead end so far has the same shape. What a word means is locked inside the word, in its own slot, on its own card, where nothing else can reach it.

So where else could the evidence come from? You already know, because you do this constantly without noticing.

Try this sentence:

The waiter brought us a bottle of pripple, and it paired well with the fish.

pripple is not a word. You have never seen it. And you already have a decent guess: some kind of wine, or at least something you drink with dinner.

Nobody defined it for you. You read the company it kept. A waiter brought it. It came in a bottle. It paired with fish. Four small clues, and the meaning arrives.

The meaning is not stored inside the word. It is smeared across the places the word tends to show up. See enough of a word's company and the meaning falls out on its own.

Words that keep the same company, such as dog and puppy, can be pulled toward nearby positions. Nobody has to type a definition. Usage supplies the evidence.