WP Term Locks

No. There are no new database tables with this plugin.

No. All of WordPress’s core database tables remain untouched.

With WordPress’s get_terms() function, the same as usual, but with an additional meta_query argument according the WP_Meta_Query specification:
https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Meta_Query

$terms = get_terms( 'category', array(
    'depth'      => 1,
    'number'     => 100,
    'parent'     => 0,
    'hide_empty' => false,

    // Query by lock
    'meta_query' => array( array(
        'key'   => 'locks',
        'value' => ''
    ) )
) );

• Basic: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-term-locks/
• Priority: https://chat.flox.io/support/channels/wp-term-locks/

http://github.com/stuttter/wp-term-locks/