What does "metacircularity" mean?

The property of an interpreter that is written in the same programming language that it interprets, and that exploits homoiconicity to reuse the existing facilities of the parent interpreter rather than reimplementing them.

Metacircularity

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
The property of an interpreter that is written in the same programming language that it interprets, and that exploits homoiconicity to reuse the existing facilities of the parent interpreter rather than reimplementing them. uncountable

Etymology

From meta- + circularity.

Related phrases

programming language

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.