Pronunciation: /roʊˌmɑn ə ˈkleɪ/
noun A novel in which real people or events appear with invented names.
A1 I read a roman-à-clef about a famous politician.
A2 The novel was written in a roman-à-clef style, making it intriguing to decipher.
B1 The author used a roman-à-clef to tell a scandalous story without naming names.
B2 The roman-à-clef revealed the hidden truths behind a well-known celebrity's life.
C1 The literary world was abuzz with speculation about the roman-à-clef novel that had everyone guessing.
C2 The author's use of roman-à-clef added an extra layer of complexity to the already intricate plot.
preposition The hyphen in 'roman-à-clef' connects the two words together to form a compound noun.
A1 I read a book that was a roman-à-clef about a famous politician.
A2 The novel was written as a roman-à-clef, with characters based on real people.
B1 The author used a roman-à-clef to tell a story that closely mirrored real-life events.
B2 The roman-à-clef provided a glimpse into the scandalous lives of the rich and famous.
C1 The roman-à-clef novel cleverly disguised the identities of its characters, leaving readers to speculate.
C2 The author's use of roman-à-clef added an intriguing layer of complexity to the narrative.
formal The author used a roman-à-clef to tell a story based on real-life events but with fictionalized characters.
informal Have you heard of that novel that's a roman-à-clef? It's supposed to be really juicy!
slang That book is basically a roman-à-clef of all the drama that went down in our friend group last summer.
figurative The painting was like a roman-à-clef of the artist's inner thoughts and emotions.
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