roman a clef

1. 1.

   a novel in which actual persons and events are disguised as fictional characters

   Broadernovel

Questions about roman a clef

What does roman a clef mean?

roman a clef means "a novel in which actual persons and events are disguised as fictional characters".

Is roman a clef a common word?

roman a clef is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.