Etymology From Middle English romauns, roumance, borrowed from Anglo-Norman and Old French romanz, romans (the vernacular language of France, as opposed to Latin), from Medieval Latin rōmānicē, Vulgar Latin rōmānicē (“in the Roman language”, adverb), from Latin rōmānicus (“roman”, adjective) from rōmānus (“a Roman”). Doublet of Romansch.
An intimate relationship between two people; a love affair.
Everybody's working for the weekend Everybody wants a new romance.1981, Paul Dean, Matt Frenette, Mike Reno, “Working for the Weekend”, in Get Lucky, performed by Loverboy:
2
A strong obsession or attachment for something or someone.
3
Idealized love which is pure or beautiful.
4
A story, novel, film, etc., centred around an idealized love relationship.
5
A story relating to chivalry; a story involving knights, heroes, adventures, quests, etc.
`Will you undertake the task? We give you complete freedom, and as a reward you will, we believe, have the credit of presenting to the world the most wonderful history, as distinguished from romance, that its records can show.'1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
6
A tale of high adventure.
Could one have known the past histories of some of the oddly-selected couples who shared everything in common, many a romance might have been written during what, to all outward appearances, was a dull and prosaic time to most lookers-on!1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 152:
7
A mysterious, exciting, or fascinating quality.
the romance of cruising down the Nile.
There's a comforting romance to the space—the chalky white walls, the soaring ceilings, the natural light flooding in through the windows, all of which create a warm, flattering glow.2026 May 23, Stacie Stukin, “Historic Opportunity”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 74:
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A literary or filmic genre about idealized love.
9
An embellished account of something; an idealized lie.
10
An adventure, or series of extraordinary events, resembling those narrated in romances.
His life was a romance.
11
A dreamy, imaginative habit of mind; a disposition to ignore what is real.
She was so full of romance she would forget what she was supposed to be doing.
12
Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music A sentimental piece of music; a romanza.
Etymology From Middle English romauns, roumance, borrowed from Anglo-Norman and Old French romanz, romans (the vernacular language of France, as opposed to Latin), from Medieval Latin rōmānicē, Vulgar Latin rōmānicē (“in the Roman language”, adverb), from Latin rōmānicus (“roman”, adjective) from rōmānus (“a Roman”). Doublet of Romansch.
1
To woo; to court.
A female Shepard can romance bisexual Yeoman Kelly Chambers, but doing so does not yield a Paramour achievement or an implied sex scene the way that romancing ‘official’ interests does. Similarly, the player can attempt to romance the Asari Samara or her Ardat-Yakshi daughter Morinth, but the former will refuse and sex with the latter will kill Shepard.2015 November 15, Meghan Blythe Adams, “Renegade Sex: Compulsory Sexuality and Charmed Magic Circles in the Mass Effect series”, in Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association, volume 9, number 14, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 May 2018, page 47:
In the ghetto, the gentle Barber romances a defiant washerwoman, Hannah, who is played by Chaplin's wife at the time, Paulette Goddard.2021 February 5, Nicholas Barber, “The Great Dictator: The film that dared to laugh at Hitler”, in BBC:
2
To write or tell romantic stories, poetry, letters, etc.
3
To talk extravagantly and imaginatively; to build castles in the air.
Etymology From Old French romanz (“vernacular language (of France)”), from Late Latin rōmānicē, from Latin rōmānicus < rōmānus + -icus. Extended in the 17th century to all languages derived from Latin.
1
Of or dealing with languages or cultures derived from Roman influence and Latin: French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Galician, Romanian, Catalan, Occitan, etc.
In this paper we will concentrate on the problem posed by Iberian Romance languages (i.e. Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish), …Eulàlia Bonet and Joan Mascaró, On the representation of contrasting rhotics, in: 1997, Fernando Martínez-Gil, Alfonso Morales-Front (eds.), Issues in the Phonology and Morphology of the Major Iberian Languages, p. 103ff., here p. 103
This book is a fully updated edition of a work first published in 1986. It is intended as a comprehensive work on both current and historical phonetic transcription practice. It covers the phonetic symbol usages of such major traditions as the early Amerindianist work of the Boas school; the American structuralist phonetics and phonology associated with Bloch, Smith, and Trager; and the internationally known system of phonetic representation traditions and transcription principles associated with the International Phonetic Association (IPA). In addition it covers less well known traditions like those of Romance philologists, Germanicists, Slavicists, Indologists, Sinologists, Africanists, and so on, and includes entries for rare and obsolete symbols that have been suggested for use by respected specialists in phonetics but which will be unfamiliar to most linguists and speech scientists.2013, Geoffrey K. Pullum, William A. Ladusaw, “Preface”, in Phonetic Symbol Guide, 2nd edition, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN:
Etymology From Old French romanz (“vernacular language (of France)”), from Late Latin rōmānicē, from Latin rōmānicus < rōmānus + -icus. Extended in the 17th century to all languages derived from Latin.
1
The group of languages and cultures which are derived from Vulgar Latin.
The Romance languages are normally grouped along broad geographical lines into Italo-Romance (Italian dialects, with a standard based on Tuscan); Gallo-Romance (French and Provençal); Hispano-Romance (Castilian Spanish, Catalan as less widely recognized standard, and Portuguese); Rhaeto-Romance (Romansh, Ladin, and Friulian); and Balkan Romance (Dalmatian, now extinct, and Romanian). [...] Proto-Romance was a purely spoken language, and we should at least in principle keep it separate from Vulgar Latin.2024, Wolfgang Oliver! Cirilo de Melo, Latin Linguistics: An Introduction, Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, page 59f: