swan song

noun

: a song of great sweetness said to be sung by a dying swan

: a farewell appearance or final act or pronouncement

Did you know?

Swans don't sing. They whistle or trumpet, or in the case of the swan most common in ponds, the mute swan, they only hiss and snort. But according to ancient legend, the swan does sing one beautiful song in its life-just before it dies. References in English to the dying swan's lovely singing go back as far as Chaucer, but the term swan song itself didn't appear in the language until the 1830s, when Thomas Carlyle used it in Sartor Resartus. Carlyle probably based his "swan song" on the German version of the term, which is Schwanengesang or Schwanenlied.

Examples of swan song in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

There's plenty left to mine in future seasons, but the season 4 finale, with its lack of white-knuckle cliffhangers, could potentially serve as the series' swan song. —

Randall Colburn, EW.com, 7 Feb. 2025 The Weeknd performed his swan song from the recent album at the Grammys, on Sunday night, an unexpected rupture in the artist’s four-year boycott of the ceremony. —

Carrie Battan, The New Yorker, 5 Feb. 2025 Beatty, who also directed the film, is in the swan song of his hotness here. —

Kevin Lincoln, Vulture, 20 Jan. 2025 Daniel Craig made his swan song as Bond in 2021’s No Time to Die, one of the first big movies to release in theaters after the Covid shutdown, grossing more than $774 million at the global box office. —

Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 5 Jan. 2025 See all Example Sentences for swan song