Chapter Merry Men to Mexitli of M by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Metals The seven metals in alchemy.
   Gold, Apollo or the sun.
   Silver, Diana or the moon.
   Quicksilver, Mercury.
   Copper, Venus.
   Iron, Mars.
   Tin, Jupiter.
   Lead, Saturn.

Metamorphic Rocks Those rocks, including gneiss, mica-schist, clay-slate, marble, and the like, which have become more or less crystalline.

Metamorphic Words Obsolete words slightly altered, and made current again- as “chestnut” for castnut, from Castana, in Thessaly; “court-cards” for coat-cards; “currants” for corinths; “frontispiece” for frontispice (Latin frontispicium); “Isinglass” for hausen blase (the sturgeon's bladder, Ger.); “shame-faced” for shamefast, as steadfast, etc.; “sweetheart” for sweethard, as drunkard, dullard, dotard, niggard.

Metaphysics (Greek, after-physics). The disciples of Aristotle thought that matter or nature should be studied before mind. The Greek for matter or nature is physics, and the science of its causes and effects physis. Meta-physics is the Greek for “after-physics.” Sir James Mackintosh takes a less intentional view of the case, and says the word arose from the mere accident of the compilers who sorted the treatises of Aristotle, and placed that upon mind and intelligence after that upon matter and nature. The science of metaphysics is the consideration of things in the abstract- that is, divested of their accidents, relations, and matter.

Metastasio The real name of this Italian poet was Trapassi (death). He was brought up by Gravina, who Græcised the name. (1698-1782.)

Metathesis A figure of speech in which letters or syllables are transposed, as “You occupew my pie [py],” instead of “You occupy my pew;” daggle-trail for “draggle-tail,” etc.

Methodical Most methodical doctor. John Bassol, a disciple of Duns Scotus. (1347.)

Methodists A name given (1729) by a student of Christ Church to the brothers Wesley and their friends, who used to assemble on given evenings for religious conversation.
    This word was in use many centuries before the birth of Wesley and of Whitfield. Gale (1678) speaks of a religious sect called “the New Methodists” (Court of the Gentiles. John Spencer uses the word as one familiarly known in Cromwell's time. Even before the birth of Christ, Celsus tells us that those physicians were called “Methodists” (methodici) who followed medical rules rather than experience. Modern Methodism dates no farther back than 1729.
   Primitive Methodists. Founded by Hugh Bourne (1772-1852).

Methuen Treaty A commercial treaty between England and Portugal, negotiated by Paul Methuen, in 1703, whereby the Portuguese wines were received at a lower duty than those of France. This treaty was abandoned in 1836.

Metonic Cycle (The). A cycle of nineteen years, at the end of which period the new moons fall on the same days of the year, and eclipses recur. Discovered by Meton, B.C. 432.

Metra Qu'en dit Metra (Louis XVI.)? Metra was a noted news-vendor of Paris before the Revolution- a notability with a cocked hat, who went about with his hands folded behind his back.

Metropolitan (A). A prelate who has suffragan bishops subject to him. The two metropolitans of England are the two archbishops, and the two of Ireland the archbishops of Armagh and Dublin. In the Roman Catholic Church of Great Britain, the four archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam are metropolitans. The word does not mean the prelate of the metropolis in a secular sense, but the prelate of a “mother city” in an ecclesiastical sense- i.e. a city which is the mother or ruler of other cities. Thus, the Bishop of London is the prelate of the metropolis, but not a metropolitan. The Archbishop of Canterbury is metropolitanus et primus totius Angliæ, and the Archbishop of York primus et metropolitanus Angliæ.