metatype

plural metatypes

1. biologyA topotype of a species which is confirmed as belonging to that species by the author who originally described it
2. computingThe type of a type.

   The Type suffix specifies that this variable will be a metatype and not an object (meaning the implementation class and not an instance of it).

   2015, Adam Freeman, Pro Design Patterns in Swift, Apress, →ISBN, page 199

   1 more example

   You can use a variable reference to a type (a metatype) to instantiate that type, but you can't just append parentheses to a variable reference: […]

   2019, Matt Neuburg, iOS 13 Programming Fundamentals with Swift […] , O'Reilly Media, →ISBN, page 186