Pertaining to or resembling romance, or an ideal state of things; partaking of the heroic, the marvelous, the supernatural, or the imaginative; chimerical; fanciful; extravagantly enthusiastic: as, romantic notions; romantic expectations; romantic devotion.Pertaining to romances or the popular literature of the middle ages; hence, improbable; fabulous; fictitious.Wildly or impressively picturesque; characterized by poetic or inspiring scenery; suggesting thoughts of romance: as, a romantic prospect; a romantic glen.In music, noting a style, work, or musician characterized by less attention to the formal and objective methods of composition than to the expression of subjective feeling; sentimental; imaginative; passionate: opposed to classical.Romantic in music, as elsewhere, is a relative word; it denotes especially the style, tendency, or school represented by Von Weber, Schumann, Chopin, Wagner, and others, and by certain works or characteristics of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schubert.In architecture and art, fanciful; fantastic; not formal or classical; characterized by pathos. See pathos, 2.Synonyms Romantic, Sentimental. Sentimental is used in reference to the feelings, romantic in reference to the imagination. Sentimental is used in a sense unfavorable, but in all degrees: as, an amiably sentimental person; the sentimental pity that would surround imprisoned criminals with luxuries. “The sentimental person is one of wrong or excessive sensibility, or who imports mere sentiment into matters worthy of more vigorous thought.” (C. J. Smith, Syn. Disc., p. 680.) Romantic, when applied to character, is generally unfavorable, but in all degrees, implying that the use of the imagination is extravagant. A romantic person indulges his imagination in the creation and contemplation of scenes of ideal enterprise, adventure, and enjoyment. A romantic tendency is often a part of the exuberance of youthful vitality, and may be disciplined into imaginative strength; sentimentality is a sort of mental sickliness or degeneration, and is not easily recovered from.n. An adherent of the romantic school. See romantic school, under I.
