Word.ws English Dictionary

metalanguages

metalanguages is the plural of metalanguage.

Meaning of metalanguage

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

Questions about metalanguages

What is metalanguages the plural of?
Metalanguages is the plural of metalanguage.

Words near metalanguages in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: metalanguages (page history and authors); metalanguage (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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Cite this entry: “metalanguages.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/metalanguages. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.