Novel

How to spell novel

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce novel

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does novel mean?

1. nounA long fictional prose narrative, usually published as a book.
2. adjectiveNew, original, or unlike anything seen before.

Novel in a sentence

• noun

  She spent the whole flight reading a crime novel.

• adjective

  The engineers proposed a novel approach to reducing waste.

• noun

  The author signed copies of his latest novel at the shop.

• adjective

  Her novel solution to the parking problem impressed the council.

Where does novel come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin novus, which simply meant 'new'. From that root came the Latin novellus, a diminutive meaning 'young' or 'fresh', which passed into Italian as novella, a short tale or piece of fresh news. The adjective sense of 'new and unusual' arrived in English in the 1400s through French and Latin channels, while the storytelling noun followed later, taking its name from the Italian novella because such tales were originally brief, freshly told narratives. By the 1600s English had stretched the noun to mean the long prose fiction we know today. The same Latin novus underlies a whole family of relatives, including 'innovate', 'renovate', and 'novice', all of which share the idea of newness, and that single short vowel in nov- is the part worth fixing in memory.

How the word is built

• nov- (from Latin novus: new)
• -el (diminutive/noun suffix)