META

The assembly language for the CYBER 200, developed at CDC ca 1977.

[CDC Pub 60256020].

(16 Nov 1994)

meta

/me't*/ or /may't*/ or (Commonwealth) /mee't*/ [Analytic philosophy] One level of description up. A metasyntactic variable (e.g. FOO) is a variable in notation used to describe syntax, and metalanguage is a language used to describe language (e.g. BNF). This is difficult to explain briefly, but much hacker humour turns on deliberate confusion between meta-levels.