metatype

English

Etymology

From meta- +‎ type.

Noun

metatype (plural metatypes)

1. (biology) A topotype of a species which is confirmed as belonging to that species by the author who originally described it
2. (programming) The type of a type.

   Coordinate term: metaclass

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

     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).

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

     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: […]