en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta
metaemotion in psychology means an individual's emotion about his/her own basic emotion, or somebody else's basic emotion. Another, slightly different interpretation of this term is "about" but not "on" (exactly its own category).
Nonetheless, Aristotle's Metaphysics enunciates those considerations of natures above physical realities which can be known through this particular part of philosophy, eg, the existence of God. The use of the prefix was later extended to other contexts based on the understanding of metaphysics to mean "the science of what is beyond the physical".
OED cites uses of the meta- prefix as "beyond, about" (such as meta-economics and meta-philosophy) going back to 1917. However, these formations are directly parallel to the original "metaphysics" and "metaphysical", that is, as a prefix to general nouns (fields of study) or adjectives. Going by the OED citations, it began to be used with specific nouns in connection with mathematical logic sometime before 1929.
citation needed Hofstadter uses meta as a stand-alone word, both as an adjective and as a directional preposition ("going meta", a term he coins for the old rhetorical trick of taking a debate or analysis to another level of abstraction, as in "This debate isn't going anywhere").
citation needed The sentence "This sentence contains thirty-six letters," and the sentence it is embedded in, are examples of sentences that reference themselves in this way.
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