Editing Meta (prefix) (section)

==Etymology==
The prefix comes from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] [[preposition]] and [[Prefix (linguistics)|prefix]] ''meta-'' (μετα-), from μετά,<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dmeta%2F μετά], 
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus Digital Library</ref> which typically means "after", "beside", "with" or "among". Other meanings include "beyond", "adjacent" and "self", and it is also used in the forms μετ- before vowels and μεθ- "meth-" before [[aspirated vowel]]s.

The earliest form of the word "meta" is the [[Mycenaean Greek]] ''me-ta'', written in [[Linear B]] syllabic script.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.palaeolexicon.com/default.aspx?static=12&wid=417|work=Palaeolexicon.com|title=The Linear B word me-ta}}</ref> The Greek preposition is [[cognate]] with the [[Old English]] preposition [[wikt:mid#Etymology 1|''mid'']] "with", still found as a prefix in ''midwife''. Its use in English is the result of [[back-formation]] from the word "metaphysics". In origin ''[[Metaphysics (Aristotle)|Metaphysics]]'' was just the title of one of the principal works of [[Aristotle]]; it was so named (by [[Andronicus of Rhodes]]) because in the customary ordering of the works of Aristotle it was the book following ''[[Physics (Aristotle)|Physics]]''; it thus meant nothing more than "[the book that comes] after [the book entitled] ''Physics''". However, even Latin writers misinterpreted this as entailing metaphysics constituted "the science of what is beyond the physical".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=metaphysics|title=Metaphysics|work=[[Online Etymology Dictionary]]}}</ref> Nonetheless, Aristotle's ''Metaphysics'' enunciates considerations of a nature{{clarify |date=December 2022}} above physical reality, which one can examine through certain philosophy – for example, such a thing as an [[unmoved mover]]. The use of the prefix was later extended to other contexts, based on the understanding of metaphysics as meaning "the science of what is beyond the physical".