Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Music The concluding passage of a movement or composition.
  • noun A conclusion or closing part of a statement.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In music: The tail or stem of a note.
  • noun 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.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Mus.) A few measures added beyond the natural termination of a composition.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music A passage which brings a movement or piece to a conclusion through prolongation.
  • noun linguistics The optional final part of a syllable, placed after its nucleus, and usually composed of one or more consonants.
  • noun geology 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.
  • noun The conclusion of a statement.
  • noun Alternative spelling of CODA.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the closing section of a musical composition

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Italian, from Latin cauda, tail.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Italian coda

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word coda.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "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