Word.ws English Dictionary

metaness

metaness noun: self-referentiality and self-awareness, especially of tropes in art and fiction.

Noun

metaness (uncountable)

  1. (informal, uncommon) Self-referentiality and self-awareness, especially of tropes in art and fiction.
    • And we know it also because the “metaness” of the communication becomes apparent in the fact that they not only simply play, but play with play.1988, Robert Newsom, A Likely Story: Probability and Play in Fiction, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 186
    • “Metaness” is in the mind of the beholder.2001, Elliotte Rusty Harold, XML Bible, Wiley, →ISBN, page 111

Forms of metaness

alternative formmeta-ness

Origin of metaness

From meta (“self-referential”) + -ness or meta- + -ness.

Questions about metaness

What does metaness mean?
Metaness means self-referentiality and self-awareness, especially of tropes in art and fiction.
What part of speech is metaness?
Metaness is a noun.

Words near metaness in the dictionary

  1. metanephroi
  2. metanephron
  3. metanephrons
  4. metanephros
  5. metanephroses
  6. metaness
  7. metanetwork
  8. metanetworks
  9. metania
  10. metanias
  11. metanil yellow

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: metaness (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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