Comment by antonvs

> Probably variable is initially coming out of an ellipsis for something like "(possibly) variable* value stored in some dedicated memory location".

No, the term came directly from mathematics, where it had been firmly established by 1700 by people like Fermat, Newton, and Leibniz.

The confusion was introduced when programming languages decided to allow a variable's value to vary not just when a function was called, but during the evaluation of a function. This then creates the need to distinguish between a variable whose value doesn't change during any single evaluation of a function, and one that does change.

As I mentioned, the terms apply to two different aspects of the variable lifecycle, and that's implicitly understood. Saying it's an "oxymoron" is a version of the etymological fallacy that's ignoring the defined meanings of terms.