Quixote

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English

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Etymology

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After Don Quixote.

Pronunciation

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  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈkwɪksət/, /ˈkwɪksəʊt/, /kɪˈhəʊti/
  • Rhymes: -əʊti

Noun

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Quixote (plural Quixotes)

  1. Someone resembling Don Quixote; someone who is chivalrous but unrealistic; an idealist. [from 17th c.]
    • 1723, Charles Walker, Sally Salisbury:
      I had once determined to fix the terrible Name of some Man of War in the Front of your History, a perfect Hero, that should like another Quixot defend your Reputation right, or wrong [...].
    • 1929, Cecil Day Lewis, Transitional Poem:
      Few things can more inflame / This far too combative heart / Than the intellectual Quixotes of the age / Prattling of abstract art.
    • 2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 268:
      But he was also a natural chronicler: one senses that, even as his schemes collapsed, this aesthetic Arab Quixote knew the stories would make great material for his witty, sharp, melancholic writings.

Derived terms

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