metagraphy

Noun

metagraphy (countable and uncountable, plural metagraphies)

1. (obsolete, rare, uncountable) Synonym of transliteration.
   • To represent letters like those of Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian, &c., by English characters, is, undoubtedly, a help to the scholar; a help with the special philologist often professes to contemn, but which the comparative philologist often misses. We will call this Metagraphy, or Transliteration.1849, A. J. Ellis, “Phonetic Spelling”, in The Prospective Review, volume 5, page 306
   • Considerable attention will be paid to metagrapnic methods, and to the application of metagraphy to foreign languages.1899 September 9, Sir Isaac Pitman, “The Paris Shorthand Congress of 1900”, in The Phonetic Journal, volume 58, page 565

   Synonyms:

   transliteration

2. (countable) metagraphics; hypergraphy
   • The rich and free merging of visual arts and literature envisioned by Isou in 1949-1950 under the name of "metagraphy" appeared fertile to many more people than the one proposed earlier with Lettrist painting, left almost unnoticed.1983, Stephen C. Foster, Lettrisme: into the present, page 29
   • For all their energised glory, the graphic scores of the Cageans (like the metagraphies of the Lettrists, and thus exactly like pre-Futurist scores) demanded a priestcraft to ensure their authentic interpretation.2002, Rob Young, Undercurrents: the hidden wiring of modern music, page 191
3. (uncountable) Symbolism that has no counterpart in speech.
   • Pilico and Aztec's presence in Spanish ritual, through metagraphy, novelistic speech, and heteroglossia, marks their presence in a dialogue.1987, Alfred Arteaga, Language, Discourse, Sign: Reading Dialogisms in the Texts of Shakespeare and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
   • Metagraphy: symbols understood even though they have no conventional counterpart in speech. For example, footprints to illustrate walking or sawing wood for snoring.2002, Katherine Koppenhaver, Attorney's Guide to Document Examination, page 253