Noun: a long written story about imaginary characters and events. Adjective: new, unusual, or different from what has been known before.
As an adjective, from Latin “novellus,” a diminutive of “novus” meaning “new.” The noun sense came via Italian and French “novella” and “nouvelle,” short new stories, which grew into the longer “novel.”
It’s no coincidence that “novel” as a book and “novel” as “new” share the same root—they were literally “new-style” stories. When scientists talk about a “novel virus,” they’re using the same “new and different” idea, not talking about literature.
The novel as a literary form has a gendered history: women were major authors and readers, yet their work was often dismissed as trivial or “domestic fiction,” while male-authored novels were more readily canonized. The term itself is neutral, but critical discourse around “serious” versus “popular” novels has often reflected gender bias.
Use “novel” neutrally for works by authors of any gender, and avoid devaluing genres strongly associated with women (e.g., romance) as inherently less literary.
Women novelists such as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and many others helped define the form, though their contributions were long marginalized in literary histories.
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