novelist
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of novelist
Explanation
Someone who writes fictional books is a novelist. If your favorite novelist is Stephen King, it means you're a fan of the horror genre. When someone writes a novel, a book-length, made-up story, they can describe themselves as a novelist. Some novelists also write non-fiction, poetry, or short stories, and you can also simply call them a "writer" or an "author." Novelist was coined to mean "fiction writer" in the 1720s from novel, though the word existed earlier with several different meanings, including "news-carrier" and "innovator."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
As Barnes accepted the papers, his wife, novelist Katherine Marsh, rushed to her laptop in the living room.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
If you’d told readers two decades ago that Whitehead would become a bestselling crime novelist, they might have thought you were kidding.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
These days, an annual competition run by Han's martial arts school is held at the "China Bullfighting Hall" amphitheatre, its nameplate inscribed by martial arts novelist Jin Yong.
From Barron's ● Jun. 28, 2026
In 1952, Greenspan met the right-wing novelist and social philosopher Ayn Rand, whose views were to have a profound influence on him.
From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2026
Writers and intellectuals, such as the world-famous novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose books depicted life in Soviet prison camps or gulags, were lucky by comparison—he merely found himself permanently ejected from his homeland in 1974.
From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau
Every year, thousands of would-be novelists pour their hearts onto the page.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
The facilitators often have exceptional literary resumes; many are novelists and hold PhDs in literature.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2026
Philosophers, ministers, judges, novelists and historians have all taken a crack at defining “character.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 19, 2026
Both were popular novelists of rip-roaring historical fiction, both were politically active Tories, and both had the Borderlands at the heart of their works and lives.
From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2026
No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
