The word was first recorded in English around 1425, from Latin, and before that, Greek. Grande Chirurgie, Guy de Chauliac's medical text, translated into Middle English, used it to describe the prescribed treatment for a hollow ulcer.
By 1537, Middle French had already used the word, in a medical context. Nine years later, the French writer Rabelais used it to describe a rational procedure.
Behind the French form lay a Greek word, built from the prefix meta, meaning ‘in pursuit or quest of’, joined to a word of uncertain origin, meaning ‘a way, or path, road’.
EXODUS and PERIOD share the same root, meaning 'a way, or path'. EXODUS is Old English for the second book of the Bible, meaning 'a going out', describing the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. PERIOD entered English in the early fifteenth century, from Latin, originally meaning 'a cycle, or recurring portion of time'.
In 1604 William Shakespeare used the word in Hamlet, describing reason hidden within apparent madness. By 1923 the word named a group of rehearsal techniques developed by the Russian director Konstantin Stanislavsky, later made famous by Marlon Brando. Today the word more commonly describes a way of doing something.
