QUIXOTIC • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Quixotic

Translators

Dictionaries

Courses

Other

Home

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/kwɪksˈɑtɪk/ Listen

adjective

Quixotic adj.

Like Don Quixote; romantic to extravagance; prone to pursue unrealizable goals; absurdly chivalric; apt to be deluded. See also quixotism. "Feats of quixotic gallantry."

Like the deeds of Don Quixote; ridiculously impractical; unachievable; extravagantly romantic; doomed to failure; as, a quixotic quest. "The word "quixotic"... has entered the common language, with the meaning "hopelessly naive and idealistic," "ridiculously impractical," "doomed to fail." That this epithet can be used now in an exclusively pejorative sense not only shows that we have ceased to read Cervantes and to understand his character, but more fundamentally it reveals that our culture has drifted away from its spiritual roots."

See images of 'Quixotic'

Etymology of 'Quixotic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Quixotic" Quotes from Famous Books

... know what he meant to do with him. He had let an impulse carry him to quixotic action. Already he was half-sorry for it, but he was obstinate enough to go ...

— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... good-humor at my Quixotic schemes. Then he told me, that since he had been in the city he had given thousands to the charitable associations which spread in great lifegiving veins through every part ...

— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... in the firm and earned the very handsome competence in a small way which would have become due to you this week, instead of throwing us over at the last moment for some quixotic reasons of your own, it might have been a different matter. I do not say it would have been, I say it might have been, and you may remember a proverb about winks and nods and blind horses. So I ask you whether you are inclined to withdraw ...

— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... Gable Inn, resolved only to claim her, though she was all his own already, when he had reinstated his fortunes by his labour. That was noble also, perhaps, but in her own heart she thought it a trifle foolish—say Quixotic, not to be too severe. She would rather have seen his ardour find a more commonplace expression. She had a general sort of belief that whatever Philip did was bound to be right, and yet this actual experience rather ...

— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... foolish, quixotic undertaking after all," he told himself, when his negotiations were completed, "but I must have some excuse for remaining here. That girl is the most beautiful being I ever met. She has power to move me as I was never moved before. I simply cannot go away and leave her. ...

— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

More quotes...