A violin plot is a data visualization tool that combines aspects of a box plot and a density plot. It displays the distribution of a dataset across different categories, showing the probability density of the data at different values. The shape of the violin represents the density of the data, allowing for a clear comparison between groups. Violin plots are particularly useful for visualizing the distribution of continuous data, such as measurements or scores, across categorical variables like gender or treatment groups. They provide insights into the data's spread, central tendency, and potential outliers, making them valuable in fields like statistics and data science.