The Etymology of Romance

The History of Romance Throughout the Ages

Joe Duncan
Moments
Published in
12 min readApr 12, 2019

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Language geeks and etymology nerds, listen up, I’ve decided to trace the history of both the words and concepts of love and romance, so that we may get a clearer picture of what love is and what it means.

Have you ever wondered where the word “romance” actually comes from, and when the origins of the word first began? What is romance? Studying the word itself might help us to see what the idea behind the word we so commonly use, and rarely question, actually is.

Romance has been around for centuries, and over the course of its existence, evolved from one connotation or meaning to another throughout its life.

The idea of “romance” has meant different things to different people, just like Piccaso’s idea of passion was firing a revolver filled with blanks at unsuspecting persons to startle them, your idea of passion might be a hot make-out session, or, watching an artist like Picasso work.

Etymology is the study of words and how their meanings and contexts have changed as time passed, as language evolves, and people use words differently, assigning them different contextual meanings, and applying them in different situations. We’ll begin by discussing the more ancient renditions of the word and idea, and reverse engineer it, tracing

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Joe Duncan
Moments

I’ve worked in politics for thirteen years and counting. Editor for Sexography: Medium.com/Sexography | The Science of Sex: http://thescienceofsex.substack.com