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Defoe

American

[dih-foh] / dɪˈfoʊ /

Or De Foe

noun

Daniel 1659?–1731, English novelist and political journalist.

Defoe British

/ dɪˈfəʊ /

noun

Daniel. ?1660–1731, English novelist, journalist, spymaster, and pamphleteer, noted particularly for his novel Robinson Crusoe (1719). His other novels include Moll Flanders (1722) and A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

When Defoe arrived in 1706, he found himself in a strangely familiar world.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 18, 2026

In the early 1700s, Daniel Defoe was an English Presbyterian on the wrong side of the law.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 18, 2026

“Robinson Crusoe” concerned a longer ordeal: Defoe had drawn on the true account of a Scottish sailor who was marooned on an island near Chile, borrowing themes from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 9, 2026

"Senrab produced an amazing amount of footballers - Jermain Defoe, John Terry, Paul Konchesky and Ledley King all played for them," Footsie said.

From BBC • May 8, 2025

Delia Defoe, his editor at Papyrus Publishing, claims that she has never met him—or even spoken to him on the phone!

From "Nim’s Island" by Wendy Orr

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023