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Data vs Meta - What's the difference?

data | meta |

As a noun data

is (time) date.

As an adjective meta is

meta.

data

English

Alternative forms

* (electronics)

Noun

(wikipedia data) (-) or plural noun
  • English plurals: Pieces of information.
  • (uncountable, collectively) Information, especially in a scientific or computational context.
  • *
  • With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Snakes and ladders , passage=Risk is everywhere.
  • (computing) A representation of facts or ideas in a formalized manner capable of being communicated or manipulated by some process.
  • Usage notes

    * This word is more often used as an uncountable noun with a singular verb than as a plural noun with singular datum. * The definition of data'' in the computing context is from an international standard vocabulary] and is meant to distinguish ''data'' from ''information . However, this distinction is largely ignored by the computing profession.[http://eprints.utas.edu.au/1957/1/Cm1My.pdf

    Derived terms

    * big data * databank * database * datasheet * data acquisition * data analysis * data domain * data element * data entry * data farming * data hiding * data integrity * data maintenance * data management * data mining * data modeling * data path, datapath * data processing * data recovery * data set * data sink * data source * data warehouse * metadata * primary data * raw data

    References

    * (The American Heritage Dictionary's usage note on 'data') * Calpundit: YOU SAY DAY-TA, I SAY DAA-TA * John Quiggin: Data is not the plural of datum * johnaugust.com: ‘Data’ is singular

    meta

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (informal) Self-referential; at a higher level
  • * {{quote-book, 2002, Robert C. Neville, Religion in Late Modernity citation
  • , passage=
  • * {{quote-book, 2006, Brendan Vaughan, What Would MacGyver Do? citation
  • , passage=Besides, I can just hear Vaughan: "Very funny, Stacey, very Charlie Kaufman-esque, very meta , very '97. I can't use it." }}

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • boundary marker
  • Either of the conical columns at each end of a Roman circus
  • Anagrams

    * ----