Meaning

noun (prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verse

noun the close of a musical section

noun a recurrent rhythmical series

originBorrowed from Middle French cadence, from Old Italian cadenza (“conclusion of a phrase of music”), from Latin *cadentia (literally “a falling”), form of cadēns, the present participle of cadō (“to fall, to cease”). The Latin verb is inherited, via Proto-Italic *kadō, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱad-e- (“to fall”, thematic present). Doublet of cadenza and chance.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0