Finale

How to spell finale

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce finale

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does finale mean?

1. nounThe last part of a performance, event, or series, especially a climactic one.

Finale in a sentence

• The orchestra built toward a thunderous finale that left the audience on its feet.

• Millions tuned in for the series finale to see how the story would end.

Where does finale come from?

Language of origin: Italian

This word came into English directly from Italian, where finale means 'final' and serves as a noun for the closing section of a piece of music. The Italian word descends from the Latin finalis, meaning 'relating to the end', which was built on finis, the Latin word for 'end' or 'boundary'. English borrowed it in the early 1700s as a musical term for the last movement of a symphony or the rousing close of an opera, and from there it widened to mean the climactic ending of any performance, season, or event. The same Latin finis sits behind a whole family of everyday English words, including 'finish', 'final', 'finite', and even 'finance', which originally referred to settling or ending a debt. The trap in the spelling is the silent-looking ending: the word keeps its Italian '-ale' tail, which is sounded as a separate syllable (fee-NAH-lee) rather than rhyming with the English 'final'.

How the word is built

• fin (from Latin finis: end)
• -ale (Italian adjective/noun ending)