Word-forming element of Greek origin meaning (1) ‘after, behind; among, between’, (2) ‘changed, altered’, (3) ‘higher, beyond’, from Greek preposition meta ‘in the midst of; in common with; by means of; between; in pursuit or quest of; after, next after, behind’, in compounds most often meaning ‘change’ of place, condition, etc., as in metabolism, metamorphosis, and metaphor, from metapherein, ‘carry to another place; change, alter; use a word in a strange sense’.  

The third modern sense of ‘higher than, transcending, overarching, dealing with the most fundamental matters of’ is due to a misinterpretation of metaphysics as ‘science of that which transcends the physical’. Hence, we have metatheory, metamathematics, metalogic, metascience, metalanguage, metalinguistics, metahistory, metacommunication, and recently meta-crisis, to denote the great existential crisis humanity faces today, not realizing, ‘making Real’, the Immortality of our True Identity.

From PIE base *me-².