Meaning of swan song | Babel Free

Definitions

A final performance or accomplishment, especially one before retirement.

idiomatic

Equivalents

Examples

“Yet, on the whole, our good Saint-Pierre is musical, poetical though most morbid: we will call his Book the swan-song of old dying France.”

“In no other way can be explained our sacrifices and martyrdoms. For no other reason did Rudolph Mendenhall flame out his soul for the Cause and sing his wild swan-song that last night of life.”

“"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"[…]—a pretentious volume which Mark Twain really considered his last. "It's my swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently," he wrote Howells, though certainly he was young, fifty-four, to have reached this conclusion.”

“Je ne parle pas français. That was her swan song for me.”

“[…]McCartney III could mark the end of his recording career. For a musician as continually prolific as McCartney (this is his 18th solo record), that seems unlikely. But if it is indeed a swan song, McCartney III will stand as a proper coda for the singer-songwriter we’ve been listening to for fifty-odd years: sentimental yet strong, a bit wistful, but as always, looking ahead.”

“Merkel’s political and scientific sides slug it out in swan song presser [title]”

“[S]pielberg was keen to stress that The Fabelmans is not a full stop: “It is not because I decided to retire, and this is my swan song, don’t believe that.””

CEFR level