In logic, a metavariable (also metalinguistic variable[1] or syntactical variable)[2] is a symbol or symbol string which belongs to a metalanguage and stands for elements of some object language.
For instance, in the sentence the symbols A and B are part of the metalanguage in which the statement about the object language ℒ is formulated.
John Corcoran considers this terminology unfortunate because it obscures the use of schemata and because such "variables" do not actually range over a domain.
[3]: 220 The convention is that a metavariable is to be uniformly substituted with the same instance in all its appearances in a given schema.
[4] Attempts to formalize the notion of metavariable result in some kind of type theory.