Construction
- meta- means providing information about, or transcending,
- syntax denotes the grammatical arrangement of words or the grammatical rules of a programming language, and
- a variable is something that can assume a value, or something likely to vary.
So metasyntactic variable denotes a word that "transcends grammar and can assume a value" or one that is "more comprehensive than suggested by its grammatical arrangement and is likely to vary". It may also denote a word that provides information about the grammatical arrangement of words by being able to assume a value that is expected to vary.
Read more about this topic: Metasyntactic Variable
Famous quotes containing the word construction:
“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“No real “vital” character in fiction is altogether a conscious construction of the author. On the contrary, it may be a sort of parasitic growth upon the author’s personality, developing by internal necessity as much as by external addition.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)