metadata

noun, plural in form but singular or plural in construction meta·da·ta \ -ˈdā-tə , -ˈda- also -ˈdä- \

|Updated on: 2 Aug 2018

Editor's Note: How metadata Was Formed

Definition of metadata

: data that provides information about other data

metadata was our Word of the Day on 05/30/2015. Hear the podcast!

Recent Examples of metadata from the Web

These tools were never popular, will never be popular, and don’t even encrypt most of the metadata leaked by email.

— quinn norton, The Atlantic, "Email Is Dangerous," 21 May 2018
As Boris points out in his public explainer post, HDR-10's metadata contains exact nit output values, not relative ones, that account for a luminance maximum of 10,000 nits.

— sam machkovech, Ars Technica, "HDR is less confusing—and even geekier—when broken down by detailed heatmaps," 16 Feb. 2018
Dolby Vision adjusts the brightness and color of scenes with metadata, and supports up to a 12-bit color depth and higher peak brightness targets than HDR10.

— tom warren, The Verge, "Xbox One is getting Dolby Vision support," 12 July 2018
Potomac Watch Podcast Judge Kavanaugh has also demonstrated judicial modesty on foreign policy by upholding the executive’s collection of metadata and use of military commissions to prosecute enemy combatants.

— the editorial board, WSJ, "Kavanaugh for the Court," 9 July 2018
Finder will now show you metadata on photos and videos, too.

— samuel axon, Ars Technica, "macOS Mojave: A visual tour of Dark Mode and other major features," 26 June 2018
The document also alleges that Facebook collected the content and metadata from texts on Android phones and most pictures on iPhones, even photos that were never uploaded to Facebook.

— avery thompson, Popular Mechanics, "California Lawsuit Says Facebook Spied On User Data Even Outside of the App," 24 May 2018
Fifty years ago, the government could not have collected the metadata for every phone call in a fourteen-year period.

— louis menand, The New Yorker, "Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy?," 22 Sep. 2014
That request encompasses 832 emails, which amounts to 5,100 pages of text, repetitive content and extraneous metadata, Morris said.

— emily k. coleman, Lake County News-Sun, "Lake County Lines: Hunt on for retail options at proposed North Chicago development," 17 June 2018

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.