Word.ws English Dictionary

metalanguage

metalanguage noun: any language or vocabulary of terms used to describe or analyze a language or linguistic process.

Noun

metalanguage (countable and uncountable, plural metalanguages)

  1. (critical theory) Any language or vocabulary of terms used to describe or analyze a language or linguistic process.
    • In order to talk or theorise about phenomena, one inevitably uses a language that is in effect a metalanguage, a special instance of language that allows the theorist to stand back and describe what is happening.2005, Michael Cronin, edited by Martha Tennent and Benjamins Translation Library, Training for the New Millennium: Pedagogies for translation and interpreting, page 255
  2. Any similar language used to define a programming language

metalanguage meaning in Tamil and Thai

metalanguage in Tamil

விவரிக்க, அலசப் பயன்படும் உருவாக்கப்படும் தனிமொழி

metalanguage in Thai

linguistical term
อภิภาษา
computing term
อภิภาษา

Forms of metalanguage

pluralmetalanguages

Origin of metalanguage

From meta- + language.

Words formed from metalanguage

Questions about metalanguage

What does metalanguage mean?
Metalanguage means any language or vocabulary of terms used to describe or analyze a language or linguistic process.
What is metalanguage in Tamil?
Metalanguage in Tamil is விவரிக்க, அலசப் பயன்படும் உருவாக்கப்படும் தனிமொழி. See Metalanguage meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is metalanguage?
Metalanguage is a noun.
What is the plural of metalanguage?
The plural of metalanguage is metalanguages.

Words near metalanguage in the dictionary

  1. metal-poor
  2. metal-to-metal
  3. metalacyclic
  4. metalammonia
  5. metalammonium
  6. metalanguage
  7. metalanguages
  8. metalate
  9. metalated
  10. metalates
  11. metalating

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: metalanguage (page history and authors); metalanguage (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-metalanguage.ogg.

Cite this entry: “metalanguage.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/metalanguage. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.