Rom.

¹ American  

abbreviation

1. Roman.

2. Romance. Also Rom

3. Romania.

4. Romanian. Also Rom

5. Romanic. Also Rom

6. Bible. Romans (New Testament).

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ROM ² American  

[rom] / rɒm /

noun

1. computer memory in which program instructions, operating procedures, or other data are permanently stored, generally on electronic chips during manufacture, and that ordinarily cannot be changed by the user.

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Rom ³ American  

[rohm] / roʊm /

noun

plural

Roms,

plural

Rom

1. an individual member of the Romani people, or Roma, especially a man or boy.

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rom. ⁴ American  

abbreviation

1. roman (printing type).

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Rom. ¹ British  

abbreviation

1. Roman

2. Romance (languages)

3. Bible Romans

4. Romania(n)

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rom. ² British  

abbreviation

1. roman (type)

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Rom ³ British  

/ rɒm /

noun

1. a male Gypsy

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ROM ⁴ British  

/ rɒm /

acronym

1. read only memory: a storage device that holds data permanently and cannot in normal circumstances be altered by the programmer

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ROM Scientific  

/ rŏm /

1. Short for read-only memory. Computer hardware that stores programs or data that cannot be added to, modified, or deleted. ROM does not require power to maintain its contents, and is often used to save instructions that enable the computer's operating system to communicate with other hardware.

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ROM Cultural  

1. Acronym for r ead o nly m emory, which refers to a memory system, such as a commercial CD, which can be read but which cannot be altered. (Compare RAM.)

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Sensitive Note

See gypsy.

Etymology

Origin of ROM¹

r(ead)-o(nly) m(emory)

Origin of Rom¹

First recorded in 1835–45; from Romani: “man, married man”; compare Sanskrit ḍomba, ḍoma “a low-caste minstrel,” probably from a Dravidian language; compare Kannada ḍomba, ḍoma, Tamil dommara “caste of jugglers”

Example Sentences

Lighton was thinking about the traditional Hollywood “meet cute”—the typically adorable way pairs first encounter one another in rom coms.

From The Wall Street Journal

Some of the greatest rom coms don’t end with their two main characters together.

From The Wall Street Journal

The statue is the first to celebrate a rom com on Leicester Square's Scenes in the Square trail.

From BBC

Kirsty Tullett-Jones, director of marketing and communications for Discover Leicester Square, said it was "about time we added a rom com statue to the line-up".

From BBC

Rom Braslavski, an Israeli-German from Jerusalem, was working as a security guard at the Supernova music festival, when it was attacked in the early morning of October 7.

From Barron's

Related Words

• Romanichal
• tzigane
• zingara
• zingaro