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coda

1 American  
[koh-duh] / ˈkoʊ də /

noun

  1. Music. a more or less independent passage, at the end of a composition, introduced to bring it to a satisfactory close.

  2. Ballet. the concluding section of a ballet, especially the final part of a pas de deux.

  3. a concluding section or part, especially one of a conventional form and serving as a summation of preceding themes, motifs, etc., as in a work of literature or drama.

  4. anything that serves as a concluding part.

  5. Phonetics. the segment of a syllable following the nucleus, as the d- sound in good.

CODA 2 American  
[koh-duh] / ˈkoʊ də /

abbreviation

  1. child of deaf adultadults: a hearing person with a deaf parent or parents.

coda British  
/ ˈkəʊdə /

noun

  1. music the final, sometimes inessential, part of a musical structure

  2. a concluding part of a literary work, esp a summary at the end of a novel of further developments in the lives of the characters

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
coda Cultural  

  1. An ending to a piece of music, standing outside the formal structure of the piece. Coda is the Italian word for “tail.”

Etymology

Origin of coda1

First recorded in 1745–55; from Italian, from Latin cauda “tail”; queue

Origin of CODA2

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The verdict put a coda on a long-running legal saga that raised questions about safety standards at training sessions for police officers.

From Los Angeles Times

But now this one act of pure showmanship has become the electrifying coda of Malinin’s programs as he stakes his claim as the greatest figure skater of all time.

From The Wall Street Journal

And the closing “Sonora” is a spirited epic with a gliding beat and a modal jam that sounds like the instrumental coda from the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” played by an early iteration of Kraftwerk.

From The Wall Street Journal

I loved the coda part of the episode.

From Los Angeles Times

The ending, impeded by a retrospective coda, diminishes the full cathartic impact.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.