Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Music The concluding passage of a movement or composition.
- n. A conclusion or closing part of a statement.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In music: The tail or stem of a note.
- n. A passage added to a composition for the purpose of bringing it to a complete close: it is especially important in works that are constructed in canon, rondo, or sonata form.
Wiktionary
- n. A passage which brings a movement or piece to a conclusion through prolongation.
- n. The optional final part of a syllable, placed after its nucleus, and usually composed of one or more consonants.
- n. In seismograms, the gradual return to baseline after a seismic event. The length of the coda can be used to estimate event magnitude, and the shape sometimes reveals details of subsurface structures.
- n. The conclusion of a statement.
- n. alternative spelling of CODA.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A few measures added beyond the natural termination of a composition.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the closing section of a musical composition
Etymologies
- Italian, from Latin cauda, tail.
Examples
“There's a scene in what we call the coda, where he comes out in a diagonal - a shooting diagonal, begging - doing these things called brisé.”
“A tragic coda is that although Saro-Wiwa was widely admired in the West, the oil-dependent democracies that profess their devotion to human rights did little to save him.”
“The coda is perfect, switching between the main lip-syncher and the crowds XD”
“Yet the experience of watching this intentionally incongruous coda is excruciating, and to no defensible effect beyond a shrug of the shoulders and an acknowledgement that literalizing the metaphysical is not Fassbinder's forte.”
“The coda is rather amazing: a silent (music but no dialog) series of scenes that build into perhaps the best example I've seen of why the secular is preferable to the religious, ending with a quietly inclusive moment of sheer, sweet perfection.”
“Rob: How do you explain the free variation of glottalization -- a marked feature -- in English coda stops?”
Winter's Law in Balto-Slavic, "Hybrid Theory" and phonation - Part 2
“How do you explain the free variation of glottalization -- a marked feature -- in English coda stops?”
Winter's Law in Balto-Slavic, "Hybrid Theory" and phonation - Part 2
“Until the coda, that is, when Mr. Nelson's inimitable tenor takes over, and the prim cablevision audience erupts.”
“And finally, they're surprised by the coda, which is a personal coda, and well, I won't tell people what's in the coda, but people are astonished and taken by it.”
“The coda is the sense of well-being that floods the body after coffee is swallowed:”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘coda’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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March 2012
panache, evanescent, erogenous, vestibule, malfeasance, lacuna, blithering, incubate, breech, tabernacle, pearly, upholstery and 79 more...
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Key
clef, coda, notch, keys, vent, bis, the key, chord, sense, cllee, flame, eden
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End of story
cloture, closure, guillotine, epilogue, denouement, ultimate, eschaton, coda, finale, happily ever after

chained_bear "Females tend to employ a Morse code-like series of clicks, known as a coda, and male sperm whales make slower, louder clicks called clangs."
--Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, 87 May 1, 2008