worn out and witless in your palsied age, a great age is your great misfortune. She hardly could restrain her threatening hand, and, trembling in her anger, she replied. The third, modern, sense, 'higher than, transcending, overarching, dealing with the most fundamental matters of,' is due to misinterpretation of metaphysics (q.v.) as 'science of that which transcends the physical.' This has led to a prodigious erroneous extension in modern usage, with meta- affixed to the names of other sciences and disciplines, especially in the academic jargon of literary criticism: Metalanguage (1936) 'a language which supplies terms for the analysis of an 'object' language ' metalinguistics (by 1949) metahistory (1957), metacommunication, etc. Looked at the goddess, as she dropped her thread. Metamorphoses, The, works of Apuleius, comprising the Metamorphoses, or Golden ass, the God of Socrates, the Florida, and his Defence, or A discourse of magic.

The notion of 'changing places with' probably led to the senses of 'change of place, order, or nature,' which was a principal meaning of the Greek word when used as a prefix (but it also denoted 'community, participation in common with pursuing'). This is from PIE *me- 'in the middle' (source also of German mit, Gothic miþ, Old English mið 'with, together with, among'). 'higher, beyond ' from Greek meta (prep.) 'in the midst of in common with by means of between in pursuit or quest of after, next after, behind,' in compounds most often meaning 'change' of place, condition, etc. Word-forming element of Greek origin meaning 1.

Metamorphoses latin