Thoreau

American  

[thuh-roh, thawr-oh, thohr-oh] / θəˈroʊ, ˈθɔr oʊ, ˈθoʊr oʊ /

noun

1. Henry David, 1817–62, U.S. naturalist and author.

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Thoreau British  

/ ˈθɔːrəʊ, θɔːˈrəʊ /

noun

1. Henry David. 1817–62, US writer, noted esp for Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854), an account of his experiment in living in solitude. A powerful social critic, his essay Civil Disobedience (1849) influenced such dissenters as Gandhi

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Other Word Forms

• Thoreauvian
  adjective

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Thoreau

A devoted reader of Thoreau and Emerson, he had a profound love of nature.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

It was Thoreau who remarked that “the transcendental philosophy needs the leaven of humor to render it light and digestible,” and one wishes at times that Mr. Nichols wrote with a lighter touch.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026

When most people think of the foundational figures in American environmentalism, they likely conjure up such wistful white Transcendentalists as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louisa May Alcott.

From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2026

He chortles as Thoreau gets sick over a quahog.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

Rather than the thick, unbroken, monumental snarl of trees imagined by Thoreau, the great eastern forest was an ecological kaleidoscope of garden plots, blackberry rambles, pine barrens, and spacious groves of chestnut, hickory, and oak.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann