Thoreau

[thuh-roh, thawr-oh, thohr-oh]

noun

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

Thoreau

/ 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

Other Word Forms

• Thoreauvian adjective

Example Sentences

Second, at their best — in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau’s objection to slavery and the Mexican-American War in his essay “Civil Disobedience” — a protest can provide a shining moral clarity.

From Salon

For e.e. cummings, like earlier American transcendentalist poets like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, paying attention was everything.

From Salon

Just ask Henry David Thoreau, who was lamenting in 1854 that our lives are being “frittered away by detail.”

From Los Angeles Times

At Los Rios, the students hike on a nature trail designed by Myers with boulders etched with quotes from Emerson, Thoreau and Muir.

From Los Angeles Times

In “A Lesson From Aloes,” a character quotes Thoreau: “There is a purpose to life, and we will be measured by the extent to which we harness ourselves to it.”

From Los Angeles Times