metavariable

plural metavariables

1. human sciencesA symbol or string of symbols belonging to a metalanguage and standing for elements of some object language.

   The pragmatic process of substitution requires some given context to provide an appropriate substituend for a metavariable projected by a pronoun.

   2006 March 13, Lutz Martin, “Relative Clause Construal”, in The Dynamics of Language, Brill, →ISBN, page 85

   1 more example

   If it is a programming language, it will almost always have its own notion of variables, and hence the distinction between object-language variables and metavariables is useful.

   2016, Aaron Stump, Verified Functional Programming in Agda, page 198