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meta
1[ met-uh ]
adjective
- pertaining to or noting a story, conversation, character, etc., that consciously references or comments upon its own subject or features, often in the form of parody:
A movie about making a movie is just so metaâespecially when the actors criticize the acting.
- pertaining to or noting an abstract, high-level analysis or commentary, especially one that consciously references something of its own type.
noun
- a consciously and playfully self-referential story, conversation, etc.:
That dialogue was an example of meta at its best.
- an abstract, high-level analysis or commentary:
writing a meta to explain the characterâs motivation.
verb (used without object)
- to analyze or comment on something in a meta way:
I spend more time metaing about the show than actually watching it.
meta
2[ mee-tuh ]
noun
- (in ancient Rome) a column or post, or a group of columns or posts, placed at each end of a racetrack to mark the turning places.
meta
3[ met-uh ]
adjective
- pertaining to or occupying two positions (1, 3) in the benzene ring that are separated by one carbon atom.
meta
4[ met-uh ]
noun
- a shortened form of metamour.
Meta
5[ mee-tuh ]
noun
- a female given name.
meta-
6- a prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, with the meanings âafter,â âalong with,â âbeyond,â âamong,â âbehind,â and productive in English on the Greek model:
metacarpus; metagenesis.
- a prefix added to the name of a subject and designating another subject that analyzes the original one but at a more abstract, higher level:
metaphilosophy; metalinguistics.
- a prefix added to the name of something that consciously references or comments upon its own subject or features:
a meta-painting of an artist painting a canvas.
- Chemistry.
meta-
1prefix
- indicating change, alteration, or alternation
metamorphosis
metabolism
- (of an academic discipline, esp philosophy) concerned with the concepts and results of the named discipline See also metatheory
metamathematics
meta-ethics
- occurring or situated behind or after
metaphase
meta-cresol
metadinitrobenzene
- denoting an isomer, polymer, or compound related to a specified compound (often differing from similar compounds that are prefixed by para- )
metaldehyde
- denoting an oxyacid that is a lower hydrated form of the anhydride or a salt of such an acid Compare ortho-
metaphosphoric acid
Meta
2/ ËmeÉŞtÉ; Ëmeta /
noun
- a river in Colombia, rising in the Andes and flowing northeast and east, forming part of the border between Colombia and Venezuela, to join the Orinoco River. Length: about 1000 km (620 miles)
yĐÄvlog History and Origins
Origin of meta1
Origin of meta2
Origin of meta4
Origin of meta5
yĐÄvlog History and Origins
Origin of meta1
Example Sentences
A spokesperson for Meta said: "We respect third-party intellectual property rights and believe our use of information to train AI models is consistent with existing law."
Michael Taylor, a historian from Ballymena, said it is "infuriating" that Meta may have used his work.
"Meta might be worth more than a trillion dollars, and it might be politically untouchable, but by violating the copyright of so many thousands of books, its actions amount to the single greatest and the most lucrative act of theft in history."
Last week, authors gathered in London to protest against Meta's actions and high profile authors including Kate Mosse, Richard Osman, and Val McDermid signed an open letter calling on the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy to bring Meta management to parliament.
"It'll be incredibly difficult for us, and for other affected industries, to take on Meta, but we'll have a good go!"
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More About Meta
What does else meta mean?
Meta is when something refers back to or is about itself, like a book about books or a meme about memes.
Where did meta come from?
Meta comes from the Greek prefix and preposition meta, which means âafterâ or âbeyond.â When combined with words in English, meta- often signifies âchangeâ or âalterationâ as in the words metamorphic or metabolic.
The prefix meta- is notably used in metaphysics, a form of which is recorded in the 14th century for philosophy concerned with the first principles of things, the nuts and bolts of reality and existence.
Meta-, here, suggests âtranscendingâ or âoverarching,â helping it become a synonym for self-referential by the 1980s in postmodernism and popular culture, used for creative works that alluded to their own form, genre, tropes, or other conventions. Think art about art. One early instance, for example, described an appearance of a real-life TV news anchor of Murphy Brown, a sitcom about a fictional anchor, as meta.
In the 1990sâ2000s, meta took special root in online gaming communities when discussing the most successful strategies, characters, or weapons. While some claim this meta is an acronym for Most Effective Tactic Available (a folk etymology), it is short for metagaming, using knowledge about the game itself to beat the âgameâ of mastering that game.
In the late 1990s, metagaming was used in games like Dungeons & Dragons to refer to an in-game character unfairly using information gathered outside of the game world by their player. Meta has gone on, in the gaming world, for anything out of the universe of the game used to affect the universe in the gameâcheating, in a nutshell, and making the game less fun for more earnest players.
How to use the term meta
True to its history, meta can be prefixed (e.g., meta-definition). It can act as a simple modifier (e.g., He made a meta comment on Facebook). Itâs often used in the predicate, though, as in: that video was so meta.
Examples of meta are often found in fine arts, with, say, paintings of paintings or photographs of photographers.
Popular culture has also gone meta, with cartoons showing their self-awareness as cartoons or films mocking the tropes of film.
The ironic, self-parodying culture of the internet makes it a hotbed for meta.
I haven't been tweeting much today. I suppose this is a meta-tweet, about tweeting.
â Jacqui Cheng, PhD Blogger School of Hard Knocks (@ejacqui)
is walking by the Twitter offices in South Park. Oddly meta?
â ËËË Chris Messina ´ËË (@chrismessina)
Nowhere is this truer than memes, which, when they become quickly popular, instantly get remixed into other memes or into memes about their own viral meme-dom.
More examples of meta:
âOne meta joke that didnât make it into the film, however, would have poked fun at the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr. have both played a certain turn-of-the-century London-based detective.â
âJosh Weiss, Syfy, August 2018
Why is Meta in the news?
In October 2021, Facebook announced the new company name Meta. The name Facebook will still be usedâthe change involves Facebook becoming a subsidiary of Meta, along with other products like Instagram and WhatsApp. The name change followed announcements about the companyâs plans to develop an online platform called the Metaverse, incorporating elements of virtual reality and augmented reality. (The word metaverse has traditionally been used to refer to some form of virtual world.)
The name change came amid increased scrutiny of Facebook and its business practices relating to internal documents leaked by a whistleblower and other recent scandals.
It was not the first name change by a tech giant. In 2015, Google was similarly restructured to become part of a parent company named Alphabet. Both changes are thought to be part of rebranding efforts that serve to encompass the wide-ranging scope of the companiesâ beyond their traditional core (advertising-based) products.
Note
This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the termâs history, meaning, and usage.
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