NOVEL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Novel

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/nˈɑvəl/ Listen

noun

Novel n.

1.

That which is new or unusual; a novelty.

2.

pl. News; fresh tidings. (Obs.) "Some came of curiosity to hear some novels."

3.

A fictitious tale or narrative, longer than a short story, having some degree of complexity and development of characters; it is usually organized as a time sequence of events, and is commonly intended to exhibit the operation of the passions, and often of love.

4.

(Law) A new or supplemental constitution. See the Note under Novel, a.

adjective

Novel adj. Of recent origin or introduction; not ancient; new; hence, out of the ordinary course; unusual; strange; surprising. Note: In civil law, the novel or new constitutions are those which are supplemental to the code, and posterior in time to the other books. These contained new decrees of successive emperors.

Novel assignment (Law), a new assignment or specification of a suit.

Synonyms: New; recent; modern; fresh; strange; uncommon; rare; unusual. Novel, New. Everything at its first occurrence is new; that is novel which is so much out of the ordinary course as to strike us with surprise. That is a new sight which is beheld for the first time; that is a novel sight which either was never seen before or is seen but seldom. We have daily new inventions, but a novel one supposes some very peculiar means of attaining its end. Novel theories are regarded with distrust, as likely to prove more ingenious than sound.

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Etymology of 'Novel'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Novel" Quotes from Famous Books

... now a novel or a debateable proposition, that slavery is a great moral and political curse. It is equally clear that its multitudinous evils are greatly increased by the existence among us of a mongrel population, who, freed from the shackles of bondage, ...

— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... colors of the American Falls are superb. How remarkably soft and fine they are! The pearl-grey, snow-white, lavender and green masses seem to mingle together, blending imperceptibly from one to the other, making a novel and beautiful effect that surpasses the rarest dreams of the most gifted decorative painter. The extreme beauty of delicate and striking variety of coloring, like evening skies and sunset seas, baffle any attempt ...

— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... complexion of the ducal authority was not confined to the personal character of the supreme officer of state, for under him, not as a novel element in the constitution, but as one which preexisted side by side with the tribunitial system, served a master of the soldiers, whom there is a fairly solid ground for regarding as second to the doge or duke in precedence, and above the civil ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... find Putnam in charge of a Connecticut regiment, in a novel field of warfare, on the coast of Cuba, in Lord Albemarle's attack upon Havana, in 1762. He was in considerable danger in a storm, when the transport in which he embarked with his men was wrecked on a reef ...

— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... purely imaginary, romantic—one might almost say, disinterested. The vagueness, the magnitude, the remoteness of the object, the resolute sacrifice of all immediate and gross advantages, clothe it with the privileges of an abstract idea, so that the project has the air of a fiction or of a story in a novel. It was an instance of what might be called posthumous avarice, like the love of posthumous fame. It had little more to do with selfishness than if the testator had appropriated the same sums in the same way to build a pyramid, to construct ...

— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

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