metastructure

English

Etymology

From meta- +‎ structure.

Noun

metastructure (plural metastructures)

1. A structure that describes another structure.
   • 1999, Sherryll S. Mleynek, Knowledge and Mortality: Anagnorisis in Genesis and Narrative Fiction:

     Within any novel, even the most dramatically postmodern ones, there is a metastructure of epistemological assumptions that define the narrative values of the text […]

2. (physics) A structure that has one or several properties similar to those of metamaterials
   • 2012 Christos Argyropoulos et al, "Broadband Absorbers and Selective Emitters based on Plasmonic Brewster Metasurfaces" arXiv

     We discuss the possibility of realizing utlrabroadband^[sic] omnidirectional absorbers and angularly selective coherent thermal emitters based on properly patterned plasmonic metastructures.

Related terms

• metastructural