The meaning of Coda?

Question

What does "Coda" mean in music? I don't understand, and it appears in many articles about "sonata form" but I still don't know.

Answer 1

It literally means "tail" in Italian. So just as the beginning of the piece is referred to as Da Capo, or "the head", the very last little bit of extra is a tail. It's not the body of the music, it's a little extra following.

(Basically piggybacking the previous answer, but I find it helps to know the etymology!)

Answer 2

In Poundie Bernstein and Joseph Straus' text "Introduction to Tonal Harmony" they define a coda as "a concluding section that follows the closing section of the recapitulation." Basically, a coda is a little bit of music that is added after we would expect a piece, or section, to end. The coda is not repeated and can be thought of as a tag only heard at the proper conclusion of a piece.