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• roman
  roman

  noun

  a metrical narrative, especially in medieval French literature.
• Roman
  Roman

  adjective

  of or relating to the ancient or modern city of Rome, or to its inhabitants and their customs and culture.

roman

¹ American  

[raw-mahn] / rɔˈmɑ̃ /

noun

French.

• romans
  plural

1. a metrical narrative, especially in medieval French literature.

2. a novel.

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Roman ² American  

[roh-muhn] / ˈroʊ mən /

adjective

1. of or relating to the ancient or modern city of Rome, or to its inhabitants and their customs and culture.

   Roman restaurants.

2. of or relating to the ancient kingdom, republic, and empire whose capital was the city of Rome.

3. of a kind or character regarded as typical of the ancient Romans.

   Roman virtues.

4. (usually lowercase) designating or pertaining to the upright style of printing types most commonly used in modern books, periodicals, etc., of which the main text of this dictionary is an example.

5. of or relating to the Roman Catholic Church.

6. noting, pertaining to, or resembling the architecture of ancient Rome, especially the public and religious architecture, characterized by the employment of massive brick and concrete construction, with such features as the semicircular arch, the dome, and groin and barrel vaults, by the use in interiors of marble and molded stucco revetments, by the elaboration of the Greek orders as purely decorative motifs for the adornment of façades and interiors, and by an overall effect in which simplicity and grandeur of massing is often combined with much elaboration of detailing.

7. written in or pertaining to Roman numerals.

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noun

• Romans
  plural

1. a native, inhabitant, or citizen of ancient or modern Rome.

2. the dialect of Italian spoken in Rome.

3. (usually lowercase) roman type or lettering.

4. Disparaging. a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

5. Rare. the Latin language.

6. a male given name.

Roman ¹ British  

/ ˈrəʊmən /

adjective

1. of or relating to Rome or its inhabitants in ancient or modern times

2. of or relating to Roman Catholicism or the Roman Catholic Church

3. denoting, relating to, or having the style of architecture used by the ancient Romans, characterized by large-scale masonry domes, barrel vaults, and semicircular arches

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noun

1. a citizen or inhabitant of ancient or modern Rome

2. informal short for Roman Catholic

roman ² British  

/ ˈrəʊmən /

adjective

1. of, relating to, or denoting a vertical style of printing type: the usual form of type for most printed matter Compare italic

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noun

1. roman type or print

roman ³ British  

/ rɔmɑ̃ /

noun

1. a metrical narrative in medieval French literature derived from the chansons de geste

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Roman Idioms  

1. see when in Rome do as the Romans do.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• anti-Roman
  adjective
• non-Roman
  adjective
• post-Roman
  adjective
• pre-Roman
  adjective
• pro-Roman
  adjective
• pseudo-Roman
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• Romans
  plural
• romans
  plural

Etymology

Origin of roman¹

First recorded in 1560–80; from Middle French, French roman; see origin at romance ¹ ( def. )

Origin of Roman²

before 900; < Latin Rōmānus ( see Rome, -an); replacing Middle English Romain < Old French < Latin, as above; replacing Old English Roman ( e ) < Latin, as above

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

roman Roman Romans romans

There is no more quotable novel about Hollywood than Carrie Fisher’s roman à clef, “Postcards From the Edge.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2024

The seamless overlap between real life and fictional counterparts, and the faithful reproduction of such well-established facts, conveys the author’s intention to offer a crystal clear clé to this roman à clef.

From New York Times ● Mar. 4, 2024

The find joins more than 6,000 roman coins the British Museum has recorded as being found in Buckinghamshire.

From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2023

But Hollywood’s biggest zeitgeist in years was propelled by a pair of movies without a roman numeral, a Jedi or a superhero in sight.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 24, 2023

I hate Morris Sampson because he is a somewhat famous mystery writer who wrote a roman & clef, a novel that is obviously based on true events and real people.

From "Confessions of a Murder Suspect" by James Patterson

Unlike Webb, which was built to study relatively small regions of the universe in extraordinary depth, Roman is designed to survey vast areas of the sky quickly.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 28, 2026

Roman aims to find 100,000 more of these exoplanets.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026

By combining Roman images with spectroscopic measurements, the researchers hope to study dark matter and dark energy with greater precision than has previously been possible.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 28, 2026

If Roman succeeds, it will put scientists one step closer to a future Habitable Worlds Observatory that searches for Earth twins — and perhaps one step closer to finding our cosmic neighbors.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026

Ghosts climbed from the fissure and seeped from the walls—an entire Roman legion in full battle gear.

From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan

Egyptians in antiquity engaged in sword combat for warfare, but also for competition — Romans utilized swords in gladiator events, rituals and duels.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2026

The Venetians, in particular, who had dragged their feet about aiding the Romans, came to bitterly regret the fall as the Ottomans gradually chipped away at their maritime empire in the eastern Mediterranean.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

"And that's not just writers who continually return to the Greeks and Romans -- the history, the myths, the characters, the events -- that's also readers. These are ripping good yarns."

From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026

Their story remains because the ancient Greeks — and then the ancient Romans, Romanoi Byzantines, Renaissance Dutch and now, an English director and a Kenyan actress — all decided the story belonged to them.

From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026

Antiochus sent ambassadors to the Achaeans, who were allies of the Romans, to encourage them to remain neutral.

From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli

This record further emphasizes her leap away from autobiography into songs that are either pure fictions or else lyrically symbolic in ways that don’t act as romans à clef.

From Slate ● Dec. 11, 2020

“I’m sad that this is what America demands as entertainment. We’re the romans, cheering for the lions. ‘Are you not entertained?’”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 13, 2019

In bookstores there was a boomlet in rakishly intelligent literary romans à clef.

From New York Times ● Jun. 16, 2017

That “lunacy” is evidenced, for example, by Hester’s efforts to make romantic romans à clef out of Murdoch’s books.

From The New Yorker ● May 10, 2016

Most of the gallicisms found are anglicized loan words from the French romans d'aventure, such as, disseized, cheare, chappell, assoiled, guerdon, palfrey, recreaunt, trenchand, syre, and trusse.

From Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I by Edmund Spenser

Related Words

• classic
• humanistic