Definition of "romance"

romance

/ɹoʊˈmæns/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural romances
1. A story relating to chivalry; a story involving knights, heroes, adventures, quests, etc.
  Quotations
  `Will you undertake the task? We give you complete freedom, and as a reward you will, we believe, have the credit of presenting to the world the most wonderful history, as distinguished from romance, that its records can show.'
  1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887
2. A tale of high adventure.
  Quotations
  Could one have known the past histories of some of the oddly-selected couples who shared everything in common, many a romance might have been written during what, to all outward appearances, was a dull and prosaic time to most lookers-on!
  1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 152
3. An intimate relationship between two people; a love affair.
4. A strong obsession or attachment for something or someone.
5. Idealized love which is pure or beautiful.
6. A mysterious, exciting, or fascinating quality.
7. A story or novel dealing with idealized love.
8. An embellished account of something; an idealized lie.
9. An adventure, or series of extraordinary events, resembling those narrated in romances.
10. A dreamy, imaginative habit of mind; a disposition to ignore what is real.
11. (music) A romanza, or sentimental ballad.
verb
third-person singular simple present romances, present participle romancing, simple past and past participle romanced
1. (transitive) To woo; to court.
  Quotations
  A female Shepard can romance bisexual Yeoman Kelly Chambers, but doing so does not yield a Paramour achievement or an implied sex scene the way that romancing ‘official’ interests does. Similarly, the player can attempt to romance the Asari Samara or her Ardat-Yakshi daughter Morinth, but the former will refuse and sex with the latter will kill Shepard.
  2015 November 15, Meghan Blythe Adams, “Renegade Sex: Compulsory Sexuality and Charmed Magic Circles in the Mass Effect series”, in Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association‎, volume 9, number 14, archived from the original on 05 May 2018, page 47
  In the ghetto, the gentle Barber romances a defiant washerwoman, Hannah, who is played by Chaplin's wife at the time, Paulette Goddard.
  2021 February 5, Nicholas Barber, “The Great Dictator: The film that dared to laugh at Hitler”, in BBC‎
2. (intransitive) To write or tell romantic stories, poetry, letters, etc.
3. (intransitive) To talk extravagantly and imaginatively; to build castles in the air.