Definition of metadata
: data that provides information about other data
noun, plural in form but singular or plural in construction
meta·da·ta
\
-ˈdā-tə
,
-ˈda-
also
-ˈdä-
\
Updated on: 13 Apr 2018
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Recent Examples of metadata from the Web
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His algorithm took the authentication tokens sent back from Grindr servers, then accessed each user’s metadata to show them who blocked their accounts.
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On Saturday, Ars Technica reported that Facebook appears to have harvested phone call and SMS metadata from its Android app users for years, at least up until Google blocked Android apps from collecting such data last October.
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Facebook also collected text message metadata such as recipient and time sent.
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The metadata from your friends can be used to determine your political affiliation, your location and even hobbies.
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Operating system memory has associated metadata that determines whether it can be accessed from user programs or is restricted to access from the kernel (again: our original coverage has more detail about this point).
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Congress passed the USA Freedom Act in 2015 to stop the National Security Agency from collecting metadata from the phone records of millions of Americans.
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The report by the Ethics Commission looked into whether metadata from John Doe documents published by the Guardian provided clues about where the documents were scanned.
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With voice activated listening kicking in in a big way, the labels are trying to come up with new ways to be smarter with and provide more metadata in order to improve all the ways the consumer can search for music through voice activated devices.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'metadata.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
How metadata Was Formed
It's easy to find data on the source of "metadata": the word was formed by combining "data" with "meta-," which means "transcending" and is often used to describe a new but related discipline designed to deal critically with the original one. "Meta-" was first used in that way in "metaphysics" and has been extended to a number of other disciplines, giving us such words as "metapsychology" and "metamathematics." "Metadata" takes the "transcending" aspect a step further, applying it to the concept of pure information instead of a discipline. "Metadata" is a fairly new word (it appeared in the latter half of the 20th century), whereas "data" can be traced back to the middle of the 17th century.
First Known Use of metadata
1983
Seen and Heard
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