Music. a more or less independent passage, at the end of a composition, introduced to bring it to a satisfactory close.
Ballet. the concluding section of a ballet, especially the final part of a pas de deux.
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.
anything that serves as a concluding part.
Phonetics. the segment of a syllable following the nucleus, as the d- sound in good.
music the final, sometimes inessential, part of a musical structure
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
First recorded in 1745–55; from Italian, from Latin cauda “tail”; cf. queue
First recorded in 1990–95
A coda is a concluding segment of a piece of music, a dance, or a statement. It's usually short and adds a final embellishment beyond a natural ending point. Like this. Coda comes from the Latin word cauda, meaning "tail," and it's good to think of it as a tail tacked onto something that in and of itself is already a whole. If you tell a story about your crazy experience getting lost in the country and sleeping at a farmer's house, you might add, as a coda, that the farmer ended up visiting you too, a year later.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The poignant “Time Waits for No One” features one of Taylor’s most beautiful solos, a fitting coda to the end of his five-year career with the Stones.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 10, 2026
And in the final pages of the “Farewell Address” movement, the work’s brief coda proves moving in its gentle evanescence.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 7, 2026
Before the unfortunate coda to their story, Chapman and her brother seemed to be the perfect example of reconciliation.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 30, 2026
“That can’t be possible,” says the wounded tech bro, adding an Apple-flavored coda: “I think different.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 9, 2026
What is the code of normalcy before it becomes corrupted by cancer’s coda?
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
