Meaning & use
romance
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Meanings
nouncountable or uncountable
A loving relationship between two people, or the feelings and gestures of love that go with it.
Grammar: A countable noun when it names a relationship (a summer romance); uncountable for the feeling (there was romance in the air).
Patterns
- a romance with someone
- romance between people
Their romance began at a friend's wedding and lasted forty years.
The film is partly a story of romance between two rival chefs.
He tried to bring romance back with a candlelit dinner.
nouncountable or uncountable
A story, film or book mainly about love, or this type of fiction as a group.
Grammar: Often used as the name of a genre: she reads romance.
Patterns
- a historical romance
She wrote a historical romance set in Victorian London.
Romance is one of the best-selling categories of fiction.
The bookshelf was full of old paperback romances.
noununcountableliterary
A sense of mystery, charm and excitement attached to a place, idea or activity.
Grammar: Used with of: the romance of travel; it suggests something exciting beyond ordinary life.
Patterns
- the romance of something
He was drawn to the romance of life at sea.
Few people still feel the romance of steam trains.
There is an old-world romance to the market town.
verbtransitiveold-fashioned
To court someone or try to win their affection with attention, gifts and flattery.
Grammar: Takes an object: he romanced her with flowers; it can also mean to persuade with attention, as in romance a client.
Patterns
- romance someone
He romanced her for months before proposing.
The suitor romanced her with poems and flowers.
Companies often romance investors with free dinners.
Word forms
| plural | romances |
|---|---|
| third person singular | romances |
| past tense | romanced |
| -ing form | romancing |
Common combinations
- summer romance
- Their summer romance ended when school started.
- whirlwind romance
- After a whirlwind romance they married in a month.
- office romance
- The company discourages office romance.
- historical romance
- She is working on a historical romance.
- the romance of travel
- He wrote about the romance of travel by train.
- spark a romance
- The trip sparked a romance between them.
Synonyms and how they differ
- love affair
- Love affair can suggest a secret or passionate relationship, while romance is more general and often gentler.
- courtship
- Courtship refers to the period of winning someone's love toward marriage, which romance does not require.
- passion
- Passion stresses intense feeling, while romance covers the whole experience, including gestures and setting.
- glamour
- Glamour suggests exciting beauty and style, while romance suggests warmth, mystery or idealized feeling.
Opposites
Word family
- romantic adjective
- relating to love, or idealistic and imaginative
- romantically adverb
- in a way that relates to love or romance
- romanticize verb
- to treat something as better or more attractive than it really is
- romanticism noun
- an artistic movement that valued emotion and nature
Commonly confused: romance or Romance languages?
romance vs Romance languages
Romance languages, such as French and Spanish, come from Latin and have nothing to do with love, though the word has the same spelling.
Practice
The two actors began a ___ romance during filming that surprised everyone with its speed.
Choose one answer.
A whirlwind romance is a very fast, intense love affair. The other options are real words but do not collocate with romance.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “romance”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.