"light novel" meaning in English

See light novel in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-light novel.wav [US] Forms: light novels [plural]
Etymology: Phono-semantic matching of Japanese ライトノベル (raito noberu), itself a wasei eigo (和製英語; pseudo-anglicism) derived from light + novel. Etymology templates: {{psm|en|ja|ライトノベル|tr=raito noberu}} Phono-semantic matching of Japanese ライトノベル (raito noberu), {{pseudo-loan|ja|en|light|novel|||nocap=1|nocat=1|sort=}} wasei eigo (和製英語; pseudo-anglicism) derived from light + novel, {{wasei eigo|light|novel|nocap=1|nocat=1}} wasei eigo (和製英語; pseudo-anglicism) derived from light + novel Head templates: {{en-noun}} light novel (plural light novels)
  1. (literature) A Japanese novel primarily targeting young adults, typically illustrated (in an anime/manga style) and containing not more than 50,000 words. Synonyms: LN Hypernyms: novel Derived forms: LN Coordinate_terms: novel, novella, novelette Translations (Japanese type of novel): 輕小說 /轻小说 (qīngxiǎoshuō) (Chinese Mandarin), ライトノベル (raito noberu) (Japanese), 라이트 노벨 (raiteu nobel) (Korean), light novel [feminine] (Polish), лайт-новелла (lajt-novella) (Russian), novela ligera [feminine] (Spanish), lättroman [common-gender] (Swedish), ранобе (ranobe) [neuter] (Ukrainian)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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        [
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        [
          "anime",
          "anime"
        ],
        [
          "manga",
          "manga"
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          "word"
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        "(literature) A Japanese novel primarily targeting young adults, typically illustrated (in an anime/manga style) and containing not more than 50,000 words."
      ],
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          "word": "LN"
        }
      ],
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        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "lang_code": "cmn",
          "roman": "qīngxiǎoshuō",
          "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
          "word": "輕小說 /轻小说"
        },
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          "lang": "Japanese",
          "lang_code": "ja",
          "roman": "raito noberu",
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          "word": "ライトノベル"
        },
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          "code": "ko",
          "lang": "Korean",
          "lang_code": "ko",
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          "word": "라이트 노벨"
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          "lang_code": "pl",
          "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
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          "lang": "Russian",
          "lang_code": "ru",
          "roman": "lajt-novella",
          "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
          "word": "лайт-новелла"
        },
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          "lang": "Spanish",
          "lang_code": "es",
          "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
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            "feminine"
          ],
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          "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
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          ],
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          "lang_code": "uk",
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          "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
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          ],
          "word": "ранобе"
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      ],
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      ],
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          "word": "LN"
        }
      ],
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "lang_code": "cmn",
      "roman": "qīngxiǎoshuō",
      "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
      "word": "輕小說 /轻小说"
    },
    {
      "code": "ja",
      "lang": "Japanese",
      "lang_code": "ja",
      "roman": "raito noberu",
      "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
      "word": "ライトノベル"
    },
    {
      "code": "ko",
      "lang": "Korean",
      "lang_code": "ko",
      "roman": "raiteu nobel",
      "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
      "word": "라이트 노벨"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "lang_code": "pl",
      "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "light novel"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "lang_code": "ru",
      "roman": "lajt-novella",
      "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
      "word": "лайт-новелла"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "lang_code": "es",
      "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "novela ligera"
    },
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      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "lang_code": "sv",
      "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "lättroman"
    },
    {
      "code": "uk",
      "lang": "Ukrainian",
      "lang_code": "uk",
      "roman": "ranobe",
      "sense": "Japanese type of novel",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "ранобе"
    }
  ],
  "word": "light novel"
}

Download raw JSONL data for light novel meaning in English (4.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-06-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-06-01 using wiktextract (ade7ec3 and 7f4db16). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.