it's "meta" programming, since Lisp macros do source transformations: code to new code. So one writes code which will rewrite code. For example some programming

it's "meta" programming, since Lisp macros do source transformations: code to new code. So one writes code which will rewrite code. For example some programming language lacks a control structure one would want. Instead of waiting for the benevolent dictator for life implementing this feature, one can do it by creating a macro, which implements the control structure. For example, imagine that you want to program with state machines and you need a short notation for that in your programming language. In Lisp you could design a syntax for a state machine and the Lisp macro would transform state machine descriptions into the code used to implement them -> the generated code typically will be longer and full of implementation details -> in the state machine description one would only specify what's necessary. The Lisp macro will do the code transformation from using the new control structure to the implementation of the control structure. Thus one can view Lisp as a programmable programming language.