noun

• 1A language described by means of another language.

  Compare with metalanguage, target language

  ‘Tarski's theory of truth relies crucially on the distinction between object languages and meta-languages, and so semantics generally seems to be necessarily a meta-discipline.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Carnap was aware that the symbol N is definable only in the meta-language, not in the object language.’
  • ‘As Grover puts it, prosentences function ‘at the level of the object language.’’
  • ‘He rejects the infinite hierarchy of meta-languages underlying English in favor of one formal object language having an infinite hierarchy of partial interpretations.’

• 2Computing
  A language into which a program is translated by means of a compiler or assembler.