coda
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "coda", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "coda" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "coda" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
coda is aEnglishnoun. It means: A passage that brings a movement or piece to a conclusion through prolongation. Pronounced /ˈkəʊ.də/. Often confused with cop and con.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | coda |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkəʊ.də/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #39,740 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for coda is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkəʊ.də/. Corpus data places it at rank #39,740 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for coda, with forms such as "ccoda", "cdoa", and "coad". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cop", "con", "cow", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Italian coda (literally “tail”), from Latin cauda. Doublet of queue and cola. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is coda, spelled C-O-D-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A passage that brings a movement or piece to a conclusion through prolongation.
- 2The optional final sound of a syllable or word, occurring after its nucleus and usually composed of one or more consonants.
- 3In 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.
- 4A conclusion (of a statement or event, for example), final portion, tail end.
- 5A series of clicks used by sperm whales for communicating with each other.
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian coda (literally “tail”), from Latin cauda. Doublet of queue and cola.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccoda,cdoa,coad,codda,ocda
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for coda
Misspelling Variants of "coda"
Frequency rank: #39,740 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: