Mustrum, what I mean is that if "cold fusion" were a reality, it just means a fusion reaction that takes place at less than millions of degrees. It does not mean "freezing molten lava in place" - that's Captain Cold, not Cold Fusion. Tell me it's the result of a tetryon cascade interacting with the molten rock, and I won't argue, because tetryons aren't even hypothetical particles, they're Treknobabble. Cold fusion, though, has a meaning, and that ain't it.
I know what Cold Fusion means now. If scientists prove fusion can't happen at room temperature? Then the term becomes kinda disused. (Especially since real fusion reactors exist in Star Trek, and they even can make anti-matter reactors, so it's not really an exciting field of tech anyway, where some quacks come out all day that they've "solved it").
Maybe they pick that word and use it for something else, a century later. Maybe it wasn't even human scientists that picked the name, but Vulcans or Tellarites and it's just a backtranslation where "cold fusion" was the closest to the name?
After all, people (or at least Androids and their creatores) have forgotten what the term house wife means in the 24th century.
I think you put way too much tought into that matter.
The movie makers used to word "cold" fuision because it sounds fitting to them and they probably think the audience is just as stupid as they are. So they didn't even bother to do their homework and look for a appropriate term for such a device.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
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The movie makers used to word "cold" fuision because it sounds fitting to them and they probably think the audience is just as stupid as they are. So they didn't even bother to do their homework and look for a appropriate term for such a device.