Other forms: romances
A romance is a love affair, or a story about one. A whirlwind romance, a holiday romance, romance novels.
It is the largest-selling genre in fiction by a wide margin and is treated with less respect than any other, which says more about the critics than the books. The word first meant a story written in a Romance language rather than in Latin.
1nounromanceA love affair, or a story about one.
“Their holiday romance ended when they both flew home.”
romance is a love affair, or a story.
Old French romanz meant the vernacular language, as against Latin, and then a story told in it.
Latin
rōmānicus — roman
Vulgar Latin
rōmānicē — in the Roman language
Medieval Latin
rōmānicē
Old French
romanz
Middle English
romauns
English, today
romance
Built from
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”), from Latin rōmānicus (“roman”) from rōmānus (“a Roman”). a doublet of Romansch.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA