What does "meta" mean?

In the Documentation regarding the Julia REPL, I find the keyword meta in the table with shortcuts in the column headed Keybinding - Program Control. What does meta mean?
Examples:
ctrl-Right, meta-F => Move right one word
meta-> => Change to the last history entry
meta-w => Copy the current region in the kill ring

The same documentation says “In addition to the control-key, there are also meta-key bindings. These vary more by platform, but most terminals default to using alt- or option- held down with a key to send the meta-key (or can be configured to do so).”

On Windows 10 meta seems to correspond to the Alt key.
meta-> corresponds to Alt+Shift+> because the > character requires you to hold down the shift key as well.

The word meta itself means “after” or “beyond”.

3 Likes
3 Likes

Fun fact/myth:
metaphysics refers to those books of Aristotle placed in the ancient library of Alexandria “after/beyond” his books on physics. See Title, date, and the arrangement of the treatises

2 Likes