Quixote

English

Etymology

After Don Quixote.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkwɪksət/, /ˈkwɪksəʊt/, /kɪˈhəʊti/

Noun

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.

Related terms

• quixotic