CoffeeScript is a programming language that compiles to JavaScript. It adds syntactic sugar that makes JavaScript cleaner and adds features inspired by Python and Ruby. Key features include cleaner syntax for functions, objects, conditionals, loops, and classes. CoffeeScript code compiles directly to equivalent JavaScript code, so it can be used anywhere JavaScript is used like web browsers and Node.js. To use CoffeeScript, install the CoffeeScript compiler and use it to compile CoffeeScript files to JavaScript for use in projects.