Definition of "roman"

roman

/ˈɹəʊmən/

adjective
not comparable
1. (of type, typography) upright, as opposed to italic.
  Quotations
  In some early printed Bibles quoted text is indicated by changing the font from roman to italic.
  2021, Claire Cock-Starkey, Hyphens & Hashtags, Bodleian Library, page 48
2. (of text, computing) of or related to the Latin alphabet.
noun
uncountable
1. (typography) One of the main three types used for the Latin alphabet (the others being italics and blackletter), in which the ascenders are mostly straight.
2. (archaic) A novel.
  Quotations
  Samuel Johnson, writing in his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), [defined] "novel [as] a small tale, generally of love." To modern sensibilities, Johnson's novel resembles more closely the novella in dimension and the romance in substance. [...] [T]he term romance, or roman, once interchangeable with novel in English, retains the meaning of novel in Germany, France, Russia, and most of Europe, while in the anglophone world it has been demoted to frivolity.
  2014, "Novel and Romance: Etymologies". Heyworth, Gregory; Logan, Peter Melville (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Novel, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, p. 942.