novelist
Americannoun
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novelists
plural
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:
A novelist explores narrative, making sense of themes, motifs and sensations to try to communicate about the complexity of a globe with some eight billion people in it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Auden enjoyed collaborations, frequently teaming up with friends, including the playwright and novelist Christopher Isherwood and the poet Louis MacNeice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 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
Ms. Kanakia, a novelist and the author of the newsletter “Woman of Letters,” is a compelling writer and a careful weaver of arguments.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
“Call it no more the White City on the Lake,” wrote Sir Walter Besant, the English historian and novelist, in Cosmopolitan, “it is Dreamland.”
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
When not looking backward, or inward to personal traumas, American novelists have turned their gaze to the uncertain future.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
Most recently, Communion was included on the Observer's best debut novelists of 2026 - a list which previously picked out bestsellers including Rooney's Conversation with Friends and The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton.
From BBC ● May 31, 2026
It’s quickly becoming apparent that Luiselli is one of the country’s most gifted novelists.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
That, at least, has been the contention of most philosophers, theologians, novelists and nearly every person counted as wise.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026
National defense and global prestige, of course, were the two concerns that had moved the reverie of space travel from the purview of novelists and eccentrics to the country’s number-one priority.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
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.
