Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An impractical idealist bent on righting incorrigible wrongs.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A Spanish novel whose full title is El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha).
  • proper noun The protagonist of the novel.
  • noun Any person or character who displays quixotism.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the hero of a romance by Cervantes; chivalrous but impractical
  • noun any impractical idealist (after Cervantes' hero)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After Don Quixote, hero of a satirical chivalric romance by Miguel de Cervantes.]

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Examples

  • As for the Don Quixote, that is someone like Mr. Mayo: a tough-minded workaholic with a dystopian view of the industry and its characters.

    One Analyst Is Detailing His 'Fight' Francesco Guerrera 2011

  • This is the story of Sen. Jim DeMint, who could be called the Don Quixote of Washington.

    The Plunging Dollar 2008

  • There was a dignity about his tall stooping form, and an earnestness in his wrinkled face that recalled Don Quixote; but a

    Memories and Portraits 2005

  • Alonso Quixano the Good, commonly called Don Quixote of La Mancha, had passed away from this present life, and died naturally; and said he desired this testimony in order to remove the possibility of any other author save Cide Hamete Benengeli bringing him to life again falsely and making interminable stories out of his achievements.

    Don Quixote 2002

  • 'I've got a theory,' said my chin-tufted friend (I have made up my mind to recall Don Quixote in future when I think of him rather than that mediaeval print).

    Cinderella in the South Twenty-Five South African Tales Arthur Shearly Cripps 1910

  • And I would have your reverence to understand that I am a knight of the Mancha, called Don Quixote; and mine office and exercise is, to go throughout the world righting of wrongs and undoing of injuries.

    The Third Book. V. Of the Discreet Discourse Passed between Sancho and His Lord; with the Adventure Succeeding of a Dead Body; and Other Notable Occurrences 1909

  • And that you may not pine to learn the name of your deliverer, know that I am called Don Quixote of the Mancha, knight-errant, adventurer, and captive of the peerless and beauteous

    The Junior Classics — Volume 4 William Patten 1902

  • Ten years later, Cervantes published the second part of Don Quixote, which is even better than the first.

    Handbook of Universal Literature From the Best and Latest Authorities Anne C. Lynch Botta 1853

  • I am called Don Quixote because I am a kind of a fool, an original, an enthusiastic admirer of all noble and holy things, a dreamer of noble deeds, a defender of the oppressed, a slayer of egotists; because I believe in all religions, even the religion of love.

    The Cross of Berny Jules Sandeau 1847

  • Paul had been very justly called the Don Quixote of the coalition, and the other powers were now not a little apprehensive of the course he might adopt, for madman as he was, he was the powerful monarch of some forty millions of people.

    The Empire of Russia 1841

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