metadata

[ met-uh-dey-tuh, ‐dat-uh, ‐dah-tuh ]

noun(usually used with a singular verb)Digital Technology.
  1. data that describes, annotates, or gives information about other data, including but not limited to tags in a programming code, information about a digital file's characteristics, or a library catalog showing the location and call number of books: Search engine spiders use content and HTML metadata to index websites.In their surveillance operations, intelligence agencies were able to access such metadata as the phone numbers involved and duration of phone calls.

Origin of metadata

1
First recorded in 1965–70; meta- (in the sense “analyzing material at a higher level”) + data

Words Nearby metadata

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use metadata in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for metadata

metadata

pl n
  1. computing information that is held as a description of stored data

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012