Absolutely. The real original term was "hedged fund" and not "hedge fund". I can only feel the pain of the guy [0] who invented the term, when he saw that his entire industry dumbed it down.
"hedge fund" implies that the fund IS a hedge (presumably against other assets one might own). Except that in and of itself the fund cannot hedge you without knowing what you own.
Nowadays, everything is called a "hedge fund" incorrectly - they should be called "hedged fund" as per the original term. They provide diversification and hopefully some return above CPI, or some well-defined risk-adjusted return.
By the way, "hedging against volatility" doesn't mean much. Most of those funds are short volatility.