novel

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot that is unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of the characters.
2. n. The literary genre represented by novels.
3. adj. Strikingly new, unusual, or different. See Synonyms at new.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Of recent origin or introduction; not old or established; new.
2. Previously unknown; new and striking; unusual; strange: as, a novel contrivance; a novel feature of the entertainment.
3. Young.
4. Synonyms Fresh, Recent, etc. See new.
5. n. Something new; a novelty.
6. n. A piece of news; news; tidings: usually in the plural.
7. n. In civil law, a new or supplemental constitution or decree; one of the novel constitutions of certain Roman emperors, so called because they appeared after the authentic publications of law made by these emperors. Those of Justinian (a. d. 527–65) are the best-known, and are commonly understood when the term is used. The Novels, together with the Institute, Code, and Digest, form the body of law which passes under the name of Justinian. Also novella.
8. n. A fictitious prose narrative or tale, involving some plot of more or less intricacy, and aiming to present a picture of real life in the historical period and society to which the persons, manners, and modes of speech, as well as the scenery and surroundings, are supposed to belong. Its method is dramatic, and the novel may be regarded as a narrative play to the extent that the various persons or characters, upon whose qualities and actions the development and consummation of the plot or motive depend, are brought upon the scene to play their several parts according to their different personalities, disclosing, with the aid of the author's delineation and analysis, diverse aspects of passion and purpose, and contributing their various parts to the machinery of the drama to be enacted among them. The novel may be regarded as representing the third stage of transition in the evolution of fictitious narrative, of which the epic was the first and the romance the second. The novel in its most recent form may be divided, according to its dominant theme or motive, into the philosophical, the political, the historical, the descriptive, the social, and the sentimental novel; to which may be added, as special forms, the novel of adventure, the novel of society, the novel of character, the novel of criticism and satire, the novel of reform, and the military, the nautical, and the sporting novel.
9. n. Synonyms Tale, Romance, Novel. Tale was at one time a favorite word for what would now be called a novel, as the tales of Miss Austen, and it is still used for a fiction whose chief interest lies in its events, as Marryat's sea tales. “Works of Action may be divided into romances and novels. … The romance chooses the characters from remote, unfamiliar quarters, gives them a fanciful elevation in power and prowess, surrounds them by novel circumstances, verges on the supernatural or passes its limits, and makes much of fictitious sentiments, such as those which characterized chivalry. The poor sensational novel has points of close union with the earlier romance. … The novel, so far as it adheres to truth, and treats of life broadly, descending to the lowest in grade, deeply and with spiritual forecast, seeing to the bottom, is not only not open to these objections, but rather calls for … commendation.”

Wiktionary

1. adj. new, original, especially in an interesting way

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Of recent origin or introduction; not ancient; new; hence, out of the ordinary course; unusual; strange; surprising.
2. n. That which is new or unusual; a novelty.
3. n. obsolete News; fresh tidings.
4. n. A fictitious tale or narrative, longer than a short story, having some degree of complexity and development of characters; it is usually organized as a time sequence of events, and is commonly intended to exhibit the operation of the passions, and often of love.
5. n. (Law) A new or supplemental constitution. See the Note under Novel, a.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an extended fictional work in prose; usually in the form of story
2. n. a printed and bound book that is an extended work of fiction
3. adj. original and of a kind not seen before
4. adj. pleasantly new or different