A novel organic crystal namely (2E, 4E)-[dimethylamino) phenyl]-1-(4methylphenyl) penta-2,4-dien-1-one has been grown successfully from the slow evaporation method. The single-crystal X-ray diffraction study revealed that the compound belongs to the orthorhombic crystallographic system with noncentrosymmetric P₂₁₂₁₂₁ space group with lattice parameters a = 7.1354(3) A^° , b = 11.2112(7) A^° and 20.0744(11) A^° . The thermal properties have been studied by using Thermo Gravimetric (TG) and Differential Scanning calorimetry (DSC). The second harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency of the compound is 2.9 times that of urea for Nd-YAG laser operating at wavelength 1064 nm. We also report the results of thermally induced third-order nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of NLO material investigated by Z-scan technique using continuous wave (CW) laser. The calculated values of c_R⁽³⁾,c_i⁽³⁾ and c⁽³⁾ are of the order of 10^-7esu, 10^-8 esu and 10^-7 esu, respectively. The estimated value of the non-linear refractive index is found to be - 4.21 x 10^-8 cm²/W. The compound also exhibits promising optical limiting properties at 532 nm wavelength.