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 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.

Example Sentences

His coda here is ingenious: Having just played Bacharach’s end title theme from the 1966 British film, he caps it off with the main title theme composed by Sonny Rollins.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 1, 2026

In a fitting coda, a torrential downpour in the final session -- "the wonderful noise of an Amazon rain," in Correa do Lago's words -- left parts of the carpet soaked.

From Barron's • Nov. 22, 2025

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

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 7, 2025

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

From Salon • Nov. 4, 2025

The advertising agency and the tobacco company were delighted by the unpaid publicity and were only too happy to confess to the error in the coda, “What do you want, good grammar or good taste?”

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

Related Words

• afterword
• postscript
• summation