coda

n.

1. Music. The concluding passage of a movement or composition.
2. A conclusion or closing part of a statement.

[Italian, from Latin cauda, tail.]

(KO-duh)

noun
1. The concluding passage of a piece of music, usually independent of the essential parts, added to bring it to a satisfactory close.
2. An additional section at the end of a piece of literature, serving to summarize it or to add related information.
3. Any concluding part.

Etymology
From Italian coda (tail), from Latin cauda (tail), the source of other words such as queue, coward, French queue (tail) and Spanish cola (tail)

Usage
"Then came the coda, in Goran [Ivanisevic]'s press conference in which we were reminded what a wonderful flakehead he is. He was asked to compare himself with Navratilova, a 6-0 6-1 winner over a grasscourt no one, and Goran happily accepted." — Bruce Wilson; Former Champs Brighten Dull Day; Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia); Jun 23, 2004.

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Coda, from a Latin word meaning "tail," refers not only to the conclusion of a musical composition but also to an ending in general. The New York Times pessimistically sees the current Israel-Hezbollah conflict as a coda in more than one sense:

"If this war ends for Israel as badly as it has started — it intensified last week after a hiccup of an Israeli ceasefire — it could well mean not only the end of Mr. Olmert's political career but a harsh coda to Mr. Sharon's life's work."

Link: Sharon Set the Stage His Heir Reacts On - New York Times

Posted August 7, 2006.

See our Word Overheard blog to see interesting uses of strange words.

(1) A distributed file system developed at Carnegie Mellon University in the late 1980s. Evolving from the Andrews File System, Coda is noted for its ability to withstand network failures. See AFS.

(2) A software company based in the U.K. that produces accounting software for mainframes, VAX and client/server environments. The parent company is the Coda Group, Plc. with U.S. offices in Manchester, NH.

(3) Earlier Web authoring software from RandomNoise, Inc., San Francisco, CA. It was used to generate very sophisticated Web sites that were built in Java rather than HTML codes. Coda itself is written in Java.

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(It.)

‘Tail’: the last part of a piece or melody; an addition to a standard form or design. In fugue the coda is anything occurring after the last entry of the subject, in sonata form anything coming after the recapitulation.

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An ending to a piece of music, standing outside the formal structure of the piece. Coda is the Italian word for “tail.”

IN BRIEF: n. - The closing section of a musical composition.

Tutor's tip: A "coda" is a summarizing part that is somehow separate from the whole, a "code" is a set of symbols, while a "coed" is either a female student or a term that indicates a school has both make and female students.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - afslutning

Nederlands (Dutch)
coda (muziek/ballet), laatste deel

Français (French)
n. - épilogue, (Mus) coda

Deutsch (German)
n. - (Mus.) Koda

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (μουσ.) κόντα

Italiano (Italian)
coda

Português (Portuguese)
n. - coda (f) (Mús.)

Русский (Russian)
кода

Español (Spanish)
n. - coda

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - coda (mus.), slutvinjett (bildl.)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
终结句, 完结部, 乐章结尾部

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 終結句, 完結部, 樂章結尾部

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 코다, 문예 작품의 종결부, 피날레

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 結尾, 尾連

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) نهايه مقطوعه موسيقيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮יסף (במוסיקה), קטע הסיום של בלט, אירוע או סדרת אירועים אחרונה‬

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Coda Music