novelist
Americannoun
noun
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.
It’s Ann Patchett—whom a Slack channel full of conference organizers are looking for, because as it turns out, the novelist loves her privacy so much, she doesn’t own a cellphone.
From Slate • May 8, 2026
All of Mr. Horowitz’s conceits are present here: a murder mystery within the murder mystery, winking nods at the author’s real-life career as a novelist and screenwriter, and playful experimentation with the detective-story form.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 1, 2026
The British novelist Gwendoline Riley introduces her narrator, Laura, through a series of episodes that capture her uneasy foray into adulthood—caught between her working-class origins and her new place among London’s creatively ambitious, self-involved elite.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 30, 2026
He just said, ‘I think you’re a great American novelist.’
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 16, 2026
He was from New York by way of Chicago, and was a rising new novelist.
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
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.
