coda
noun
a more or less independent passage, at the end of a composition, introduced to bring it to a satisfactory close.
coda
1 American
[koh-duh]
/ ˈkoʊ də /
noun
-
codas
plural
-
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.
CODA
2
American
[koh-duh]
/ ˈkoʊ də /
abbreviation
coda
British
/ ˈkəʊdə /
noun
-
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
coda
Cultural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of coda1
First recorded in 1745–55; from Italian, from Latin cauda “tail”; cf. queue
Origin of CODA2
First recorded in 1990–95
Explanation
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.
Vocabulary lists containing coda
Music - Middle School
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Music - High School
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Breadcrumbs
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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.
See Examples For:
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
Visitors are left to reconcile a history of gradually expanding rights and liberties with that portentous coda.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 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
Messi’s hat trick was a noisy rebuke to the skeptics who worry he’s lost a step, who think his sunny coda with the MLS’s Inter Miami is akin to a sun-tanned semiretirement.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 17, 2026
What is the code of normalcy before it becomes corrupted by cancer’s coda?
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Streamers have also gradually gained wider acceptance at the Academy Awards, where Apple won best picture for "CODA" in 2022.
From Barron's ● Dec. 17, 2025
After thinly slicing and staining tissue from 38 normal pancreatic samples onto hundreds of sequential 2D slides, the researchers developed CODA, a machine-learning pipeline, to analyze and reconstruct the slide images into digital 3D images.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 18, 2024
Meanwhile, romantic film CODA, war film Mincemeat and TV series The Pact have received three nominations each.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2022
And while Netflix has had several Academy Award nominations in the past, Apple became the first streaming company to win a Best Picture Oscar for "CODA".
From Reuters ● Apr. 18, 2022
From "The Simpsons" to "CODA," why are deaf characters seemingly having a moment right now?
From Salon ● Apr. 11, 2022
Fernanda Torres’ stunning performance holds the film together with matriarchal love, but it’s the film’s two codas that have left it lingering in my mind for months.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2025
Two very quick codas to what you’re saying, Mark.
From Slate ● Dec. 30, 2024
Even if sperm whale codas can’t be decoded, however, that doesn’t mean they can’t be better understood.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2024
Sperm whales communicate through rhythmic patterns of clicks called codas.
From Science Daily ● May 16, 2024
Schubert, in the importance of his codas, recalls Beethoven; each, however, made it serve a different purpose.
From The Pianoforte Sonata Its Origin and Development by J. S. (John South) Shedlock
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.
