plural novellas or novelle
nō-ˈve-lē 
1
plural novelle
: a story with a compact and pointed plot
2
plural novellas
: a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel
Examples of novella in a Sentence
pressed for time, many English teachers have their students read the one novella among the novelist's works
Recent Examples on the Web
The Norwegian writer Vigdis Hjorth creates a whole world in very few pages in this novella-length work in which even the pacing of the narrative itself does so much of the storytelling.
—
Literary Hub, 11 June 2026
In this inventive, boundary-pushing follow-up to Detransition, Baby, one novella and three stories take on gender, transness and lives on the margins in all of their gorgeously complicated glory.
—Caroline Killilea, PEOPLE, 10 June 2026
These invasion fictions took a range of forms, from short stories and pamphlets to novellas and full-length novels, and proliferated especially in the late-Victorian and Edwardian period leading up to World War I, which brought the subgenre’s brief flourishing to an end.
—Ivan Kreilkamp, JSTOR Daily, 10 June 2026
Building on a concept devised by the director and producer Pierre-Henri Léon, Santiago Otheguy’s script plays fast and loose with Bizet’s opera and the Prosper Mérimée novella that inspired it — to the point of inventing an entirely new protagonist.
—Guy Lodge, Variety, 31 May 2026
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Literary Hub, 11 June 2026
In this inventive, boundary-pushing follow-up to Detransition, Baby, one novella and three stories take on gender, transness and lives on the margins in all of their gorgeously complicated glory.
—Caroline Killilea, PEOPLE, 10 June 2026
These invasion fictions took a range of forms, from short stories and pamphlets to novellas and full-length novels, and proliferated especially in the late-Victorian and Edwardian period leading up to World War I, which brought the subgenre’s brief flourishing to an end.
—Ivan Kreilkamp, JSTOR Daily, 10 June 2026
Building on a concept devised by the director and producer Pierre-Henri Léon, Santiago Otheguy’s script plays fast and loose with Bizet’s opera and the Prosper Mérimée novella that inspired it — to the point of inventing an entirely new protagonist.
—Guy Lodge, Variety, 31 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for novella
Cite this Entry
“Novella.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/novella. Accessed 17 Jun. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
novella
noun
no·vel·la
nō-ˈvel-ə
: a work of fiction falling between a short story and a novel in length and complexity
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