Etymology
Coming from the prefixes met- and meta-, whose meanings would be:
- Change or mutation
- Beyond
- After
- Later
- That transcends
- What it covers
- That falls on itself
- What is described
- Define your own properties abstractly
And of the word physis, whose meaning would be:
- nature
- act of doing
- to born
- to grow
According to the time frame
- Future tense: after...
- Distant space: beyond...
- Another dimension: the metaphysical or the non-rational.
According to Wikipedia:
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among [the study of] the natural".