What is ML in this context? Neither CakeML nor Standard ML site appear to actually define it, and it's an acronym with a few definitions in tech (e.g. Machine Learning)
It's Meta Language. The ML language was developed in the early 1970s as a meta-language for the LCF theorem prover. ML was developed as a language for programming proof tactics. The strong type system and type soundness guarantees of ML were important to guarantee that such tactics could only prove correct theorems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML_(programming_language)