novelist

[nov-uh-list]

noun

1. a person who writes novels. novel.

novelist

/ ˈnɒvəlɪst /

noun

1. a writer of novels

Word History and Origins

Origin of novelist¹

First recorded in 1575–85; novel ¹ + -ist

Example Sentences

When a journalist informed the novelist Doris Lessing she had won the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature, she responded: "Oh, Christ."

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Unlike most novelists, his voice has two distinct but overlapping registers.

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You’re inviting three British crime novelists, living or dead, to tea.

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The American poet and novelist Walt Whitman once wrote, “I contain multitudes.”

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The Booker-winning novelist has previously expressed his opposition to "sensitivity readers", the practice of hiring someone to read a manuscript before its publication in order to point out things that might be offensive to readers.

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Related Words

• author 
• storyteller 
• writer