postlude
Americannoun
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a concluding piece or movement.
-
a voluntary at the end of a church service.
noun
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music a final or concluding piece or movement
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a voluntary played at the end of a Church service
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.
Terror turns to mere sadness as a muted ensemble of bassoon and three contrabass clarinets — a feature of Eastman’s idiosyncratic, extravagant orchestration — offers a stunned postlude.
From New York Times • Feb. 4, 2022
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
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
Marvel fans know this by now, but stay for the credits — and I do mean all of them — for a postlude that will deflate any lingering feelings of undue pomp and circumstance.
From Washington Post • Jul. 6, 2017
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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
