envoi

American  

[en-voi, ahn-voi] / ˈɛn vɔɪ, ˈɑn vɔɪ /

noun

plural

envois

1. a final, summative message, such as the closing scene of a movie or a concluding passage or reflection in a book.

2. a final act of farewell at the end of a career, such as a performer's last appearance or recording, an athlete's last competition, an author's last book, etc.; swan song.

3. Prosody. in a ballad or sestina, a final stanza, containing a dedication or summative reflection.

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Example Sentences

If I was stopped now and then by Crimp’s more mystifying conceits — a Borscht Belt envoi?

From New York Times

When she signs off as “Your loving wife,” the envoi is simultaneously sarcastic and true.

From The New Yorker

Amid the ordinary gains and losses of the calendar year arrive the vivid envois of the past: a country drugstore, the “kamikaze Fiats” of Rome, a statue of Dante under alpine snow.

From The New Yorker

An environmental envoi, perhaps, with Buzz washed up on a beach alongside other jetsam, or clogging the gullet of a whale?

From The New Yorker

It said it was “once again inviting literature lovers and bibliophiles to see Proust’s work in a new light through 70 lots of literary manuscripts, letters and books with envois”.

From The Guardian

Related Words

• farewell