Word.ws English Dictionary

metatheory

metatheory noun: a theory about a theory.

Noun

metatheory (countable and uncountable, plural metatheories)

  1. A theory about a theory.
  2. Examination of the theory or theories relating to a certain field of study or endeavour.
    • The primary function of metatheory—including metamethod—is to provide a rich source of concepts out of which theories and methods emerge. […] Theories are about the empirical phenomena in a specific subject area, and methods are the procedures used to generate or capture these phenomena; by...2013, Willis F. Overton, Ulrich Müller, “2: Metatheories, Theories, and Concepts in the Study of Development”, in Irving B. Weiner, Richard M. Lerner, M. Ann Easterbrooks, Jayanthi Mistry, editors...

Forms of metatheory

pluralmetatheories

Origin of metatheory

From meta- + theory.

Questions about metatheory

What does metatheory mean?
Metatheory means a theory about a theory.
What part of speech is metatheory?
Metatheory is a noun.
What is the plural of metatheory?
The plural of metatheory is metatheories.

Words near metatheory in the dictionary

  1. metatheories
  2. metatheorize
  3. metatheorized
  4. metatheorizes
  5. metatheorizing
  6. metatheory
  7. metatherial
  8. metatherian
  9. metatherians
  10. metathesauri
  11. metathesaurus

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: metatheory (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: “metatheory.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/metatheory. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.