Note that you don't need to 'enable' the Meta key in Terminal on OS X. By default, option does what it does in other programs, allowing you to type alternative

Note that you don't need to 'enable' the Meta key in Terminal on OS X. By default, option does what it does in other programs, allowing you to type alternative characters. If you'd still like to keep that behaviour, you can send meta by pressing escape first -- Meta-b becomes escape, then b.