Word of the Day for Sunday, January 1, 2012
novation \noh-VEY-shuhn\, noun:
1. The introduction of something new; innovation.
2. Law. The substitution of a new obligation for an old one, usually by the substitution of a new debtor or of a new creditor.
Everything seems to suggest that his discourse proceeds according to a two-term dialectic: popular opinion and its contrary, Doxa and paradox, the stereotype and the novation, fatigue and freshness, relish and disgust: I like/I don't like.
-- Roland Barthes, "Roland Barthes"
The Text is a little like a score of this new kind: it solicits from the reader a practical collaboration. A great novation this, for who executes the work?
-- Edited by Dorothy Hale, "The Novel: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1900-2000"
Novation comes directly from the Latin word novātiōn which meant "a renewing." Its roots are novāre which means "to renew" and the suffix -ion which denotes an action, as in creation or fusion.
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