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postlude

American  
[pohst-lood] / ˈpoʊst lud /

noun

Music.
  1. a concluding piece or movement.

  2. a voluntary at the end of a church service.


postlude British  
/ ˈpəʊstluːd /

noun

  1. music a final or concluding piece or movement

  2. a voluntary played at the end of a Church service

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of postlude

1850–55; post- + -lude < Latin lūdus game, modeled on prelude


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Minsky, who died in 2016, explored all these fascinations in his writings — notably 1981’s “Music, Mind and Meaning,” for which Machover recently wrote a postlude.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 16, 2023

His inconclusive conclusion is unusually but perhaps brilliantly relegated to a compact postlude, after readers’ received notions have been alternately reinforced and undermined but certainly overwhelmed.

From Slate ● Oct. 17, 2020

And I’m really proud of the orchestral moments: The Act I postlude is one of the most beautiful things Bernstein ever wrote.

From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2018

At the worship services, he usually plays the prelude, an offertory and the postlude, as well as accompaniments to congregational singing.

From Washington Times ● May 13, 2018

They sat through the service and listened to the Bath minister’s breathy sermon from Galatians, and when the last chords of Lillian Woodward’s postlude finished, they stood up.

From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt

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