Walden

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A famous naturalist book by Henry David Thoreau that reflects on simple living in natural surroundings and the philosophy of self-sufficiency
2. A work that emphasizes the importance of nature, individualism, and personal discovery, often drawing from the author's experiences at a pond in Massachusetts
3. A philosophical text that critiques materialism and promotes a return to nature through a narrative of Thoreau's life in a cabin by a lake in the woods

Etymology: Walden is a place name before it is a book title. It comes from Old English "walh", meaning "Welshman" (originally a word for any Romance or Celtic-speaking outsider), in the genitive plural "wala", combined with "denu", meaning "valley". The result, "Walas denu," meant something like "valley of the Welsh" or "valley of the foreigners," a name given to a dip of land whose original inhabitants were non-Anglo-Saxon speakers. The name was then carried into the present day by a pond near Concord, Massachusetts. Henry David Thoreau chose it as the setting for his 1854 book, in which he describes two years spent in a cabin beside that pond. The book turned a local landmark into a byword for a life lived close to nature and on one's own terms, so that the name now calls up the book rather than the Old English valley behind it.