Did you know?
If someone tells you that you've come up with a novel idea or a novel interpretation of something, it's probably a compliment: not everyone is capable of original thinking. But not everything new is terribly worthwhile; a novelty, for example, is often a cute (or maybe just silly) little object that you might put on a display shelf in your house. It may seem surprising that the familiar noun novel is related as well. In the 14th century, Italian writers began writing collections of short tales, each of which they called a novella because it represented a new literary form; from this word, three centuries later, the English coined the noun novel.
Examples of novel in a Sentence
Forbes.com, 15 Sep. 2025
The same was true of the Dutch squad, and such situations have become something of a World Cup cliche, but in 1974 this was considered novel, and a sign that the sport had become overrun by financial interests, even at international level.
—Michael Cox, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2025
Tom Brown, Space.com, 21 Sep. 2025
The director Chloé Zhao has created a gorgeous and shattering adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, which imagines how a personal tragedy led William Shakespeare to write Hamlet.
—Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 20 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for novel
Cite this Entry
“Novel.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/novel. Accessed 23 Sep. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
novel
1 of 2 adjective
novel
2 of 2 noun
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