In language, it is common a word has more than one literary or dictionary definition, which can be found in each word dictionary entry. A dictionary entry like the one presented in the question, contains information about a specific word including the word itself (novel), the type of word it is (adjective), its origin in language (Middle English...) and the definition or definitions a word has, which are usually enumerated in the case of multiple definitions, this means in this case the word "novel" has four different definitions "new and not like anything formerly known", "original", "invented prose narrative" and " the literary genre that is made up of novels". Thus, the definitions that there are for the word novel are four.
If you have a vocab section listed next to the text, then definitions for the words you might not know in the passage can be found in this section, instead of having to look it up or ask someone else.
