This isn't an English language question. The technology in question doesn't guarantee a singular route or a path to a destination. Subsequent packets from an originating host to a destination host can follow different paths. Even during an activity such as a traceroute. A packet that reached its TTL at what is presented as hop 12 didn't necessarily traverse previous hops displayed by traceroute.
You'll learn pedantry gets tiring when you get older. How traceroute is understood and displayed to the end user constitutes a route. If you have an issue with how the developers of traceroute framed it, that's on you.
Feel free to submit a PR if you disagree:
https://man.openbsd.org/traceroute