Meaning
The moment at the end of a performance when the cast returns to the stage to bow and receive the audience's applause; figuratively, a final appearance, farewell appearance or last round of recognition at the close of a career or venture, as in a fitting end to forty years of service. Neutral in literal use; figuratively it tends toward the sentimental or valedictory. Regional use: General English (theatrical origin).
Origin
The phrase names the practice it describes: after the final curtain falls, individuals or the whole company reappear, in response to applause, to be recognized by the audience. Etymonline dates 'curtain call' to 1884 as a theatrical term for the appearance of individual performers on stage at the end of a performance; the custom of bowing for the crowd is older, but the fixed compound belongs to the era of elaborately billed star performers. Wikipedia records the alternative names 'walkdown' and 'final bow', the convention of acknowledging the orchestra in musical theatre, and stretched uses in film (character vignettes before the credits) and sport (a player returning to acknowledge the crowd after a big play). In figurative use it now labels any valedictory appearance, from a retiring athlete's last lap to a final exhibition by an artist.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- final bow
- take a bow
- take a curtain call
- walkdown
Usage Examples
- The whole company took a curtain call under a shower of gold confetti.
- Auctioning the last family printing press felt like a curtain call for three generations of the trade.
- The crowd gave the retiring defender an unofficial curtain call in the eighty-ninth minute.