novel [LME] As an adjective novel first meant ‘recent’. It entered English in the 15th century via Old French from the Latin novellus, which came from novus, ‘new’. Novel meaning ‘a book’ is at root the same word, deriving from Italian novella (storia) ‘new (story)’, also from novellus. People first started speaking of a literary novel when referring to The Decameron by Boccaccio, which we would nowadays call a collection of short stories. Novel in the modern sense first started being used in the 1630s. At first it was contrasted with *romance, novels being shorter and having more connection to real life.