Word.ws English Dictionary

rocambolesque

rocambolesque adjective: fantastic, incredible, fabulous.

Adjective

rocambolesque (comparative more rocambolesque, superlative most rocambolesque)

  1. Fantastic, incredible, fabulous.
    • a rocambolesque story
    • Behind much of this were particular concrete New Left movements, some serious, some more rocambolesque.2001, “Chapter 14: Structure, Contingency, and Choice”, in Joan Wallach Scott, Debra Keates, editors, Schools of Thought: Twenty-five Years of Interpretive Social Science, Princeton University Press...

Examples of rocambolesque in a sentence

  • Though not exactly seeking carpet slippers and the reassuring click of knitting needles he had envisaged a future rather less rocambolesque than the plot of the average Tarantino movie.2004, Christopher Wood, Sincere Male Seeks Love and Someone to Wash His Underpants, Twenty First Century Publishers, page 18:
  • The latter in particular was an unlikely candidate for what would turn out to be the most rocambolesque experiences in the entire history of the encounter.2017, Matteo Salvadore, The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations, 1402-1555, Taylor & Francis (Routledge)...

Forms of rocambolesque

comparativemore rocambolesque
superlativemost rocambolesque

Origin of rocambolesque

Borrowed from French rocambolesque, in reference to Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail's character Rocambole.

Questions about rocambolesque

What does rocambolesque mean?
Rocambolesque means fantastic, incredible, fabulous.
How do you use rocambolesque in a sentence?
Though not exactly seeking carpet slippers and the reassuring click of knitting needles he had envisaged a future rather less rocambolesque than the plot of the average Tarantino movie.
What part of speech is rocambolesque?
Rocambolesque is an adjective.

Words near rocambolesque in the dictionary

  1. rocaglamide
  2. rocaille
  3. rocailles
  4. rocambole
  5. rocamboles
  6. rocambolesque
  7. Rocas
  8. roccella
  9. roccellaceous
  10. roccellas
  11. roccellic acid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rocambolesque (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “rocambolesque.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rocambolesque. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.