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.

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CODA ² American  

[koh-duh] / ˈkoʊ də /

abbreviation

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

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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

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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.”

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Etymology

Origin of coda¹

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

Origin of CODA¹

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

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

From Los Angeles Times

A poetic coda read by Mr. Hopkins brings yet more depth to this superb recording.

From The Wall Street Journal

It’s safe to say that Cuomo did not wrap up this bizarre and embarrassing coda to his political career with grace.

From Salon

The book’s last and shortest entry, the fabular “The Old Man in the Piazza,” makes for a somewhat slight coda.

From Los Angeles Times

If he thought his return to the laboratory would be a placid coda to his career, he was soon proved wrong, by yet another advance in genetic engineering, this one called CRISPR.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• afterword
• postscript
• summation