quixotic

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: quix=ot=ic

CIDE DICTIONARY

quixotic, a. 

•  Like Don Quixote; romantic to extravagance; prone to pursue unrealizable goals; absurdly chivalric; apt to be deluded. See also quixotism.  Prescott.  [1913 Webster]
•  Like the deeds of Don Quixote; ridiculously impractical; unachievable; extravagantly romantic; doomed to failure; as, a quixotic quest.  [PJC]

  "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."  [PJC]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

quixotic, adj.
1 extravagantly and romantically chivalrous; regardless of material interests in comparison with honour or devotion.
2 visionary; pursuing lofty but unattainable ideals.

Derivative

quixotically adv. quixotism n. quixotry n.

Etymology

Don Quixote, hero of Cervantes' romance f. Sp. quixote thigh armour

DEVIL DICTIONARY

quixotic

adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

When ignorance from out of our lives can banish
Philology, 'tis folly to know Spanish.
Juan Smith

THESAURUS

quixotic

absurd, airy, autistic, chimerical, dereistic, dreamlike, dreamy, fanciful, fantastic, foolhardy, idealistic, impracticable, impractical, in the clouds, mad, optimistic, otherworldly, poetic, preposterous, rash, reckless, ridiculous, romancing, romantic, romanticized, starry-eyed, storybook, transcendental, transmundane, unpractical, unrealistic, unrealizable, visionary, wild, wish-fulfilling

ROGET THESAURUS

quixotic

Rashness

N rashness, temerity, want of caution, imprudence, indiscretion, overconfidence, presumption, audacity, precipitancy, precipitation, impetuosity, levity, foolhardihood, foolhardiness, heedlessness, thoughtlessness, carelessness, desperation, Quixotism, knight-errantry, fire eating, gaming, gambling, blind bargain, leap in the dark, leap of faith, fool's paradise, too many eggs in one basket, desperado, rashling, madcap, daredevil, Hotspur, fire eater, bully, bravo, Hector, scapegrace, enfant perdu, Don Quixote, knight-errant, Icarus, adventurer, gambler, gamester, dynamitard, boomer, rash, incautious, indiscreet, imprudent, improvident, temerarious, uncalculating, heedless, careless, without ballast, heels over head, head over heels, giddy, wanton, reckless, wild, madcap, desperate, devil-may-care, hot-blooded, hotheaded, hotbrained, headlong, headstrong, breakneck, foolhardy, harebrained, precipitate, impulsive, overconfident, overweening, venturesome, venturous, adventurous, Quixotic, fire eating, cavalier, janty, jaunty, free and easy, off one's guard, post haste, a corps perdu, hand over head, tete baissee, headforemost, happen what may, come what may, neck or nothing, the devil being in one, non semper temeritas est felix, paucis temeritas est bono multis malo.

Imagination

N imagination, originality, invention, fancy, inspiration, verve, warm imagination, heated imagination, excited imagination, sanguine imagination, ardent imagination, fiery imagination, boiling imagination, wild imagination, bold imagination, daring imagination, playful imagination, lively imagination, fertile imagination, fancy, mind's eye, such stuff as dreams are made of, ideality, idealism, romanticism, utopianism, castle-building, dreaming, phrensy, frenzy, ecstasy, extasy, calenture, reverie, trance, day dream, golden dream, somnambulism, conception, Vorstellung, excogitation, a fine frenzy, cloudland, dreamland, flight of fancy, fumes of fancy, thick coming fancies, creation of the brain, coinage of the brain, imagery, conceit, maggot, figment, myth, dream, vision, shadow, chimera, phantasm, phantasy, fantasy, fancy, whim, whimsey, whimsy, vagary, rhapsody, romance, gest, geste, extravaganza, air drawn dagger, bugbear, nightmare, flying Dutchman, great sea serpent, man in the moon, castle in the air, pipe dream, pie-in-the-sky, chateau en Espagne, Utopia, Atlantis, happy valley, millennium, fairyland, land of Prester John, kindgom of Micomicon, work of fiction, Arabian nights, le pot au lait, dream of Alnashar, illusion, phantom, Fata Morgana, vapor, stretch of the imagination, mythogenesis, idealist, romanticist, visionary, mopus, romancer, dreamer, somnambulist, rhapsodist, castle-buildier, fanciful projector, imagined, ben trovato, air drawn, airbuilt, imagining, imaginative, original, inventive, creative, fertile, romantic, high flown, flighty, extravagant, fanatic, enthusiastic, unrealistic, Utopian, Quixotic, ideal, unreal, in the clouds, in nubibus, unsubsantial, illusory, fabulous, legendary, mythical, mythic, mythological, chimerical, imaginary, visionary, notional, fancy, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, whimsical, fairy, fairy-like, gestic, a change came o'er the spirit of my dream, aegri somnia vana, dolphinum appingit sylvis in fluctibus aprum, fancy light from fancy caught, imagination rules the world, l'imagination gallope, le jugement ne va que le pas, musaeo contingens cuncta lepore, tous songes sont mensonges, Wahrheil und Dichtung, DIVISION II COMMUNICATION OF IDEAS.