rom-com

noun

ˈräm-ˌkäm 

plural rom-coms

: romantic comedy

That's where the rom-com comes in, that wayward genre of sweet serendipity and forgivably thin plots set to rising music …

—Vogue

One of the film's pleasures is its movie within a movie, the rom-com "I Love You, I Love New York."

—Tad Friend

—often used before another noun

a silly rom-com plot

Does anybody cry funnier than Segel does in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the wonderful rom-com farce he not only starred in but wrote?

—Jim Windolf

Examples of rom-com in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Written by Pozner, Settling is a half-hour rom-com following Jessy (Justine Lupe), who has always seen commitment as limiting. — Rosy Cordero, Deadline, 19 Oct. 2026

Under Lin, the streamer‘s movies division was reorganized by genre, with deputies like Kira Goldberg, Ori Marmur and Jason Young handling films that fell under categories like sci-fi, rom-com and family film. — Mia Galuppo, HollywoodReporter, 19 Oct. 2026

Nearly fifty years later, Impromptu (1991) retold the story as wry, knowing rom-com, this time with Judy Davis as the capering novelist and Hugh Grant as the winsome composer. — Kathryn Hughes, The New York Review of Books, 17 Oct. 2026

After starring in a Hunger Games movie and a Netflix rom-com, what is your relationship with the idea of becoming a movie star? — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 15 Oct. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1958, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for rom-com

• aplomb
• balaam
• begam
• cocom
• embalm
• islam
• pogrom
• salaam
• sitcom
• balm
• bom
• bomb