| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| quixotic |
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| SYLLABICATION: | quix·ot·ic |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  kw k-s t k |
| VARIANT FORMS: | also quix·ot·i·cal (--k l) |
| ADJECTIVE: | 1. Caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals; idealistic without regard to practicality. 2. Capricious; impulsive: “At worst his scruples must have been quixotic, not malicious” (Louis Auchincloss). | | ETYMOLOGY: | From English Quixote, a visionary, after Don Quixote, hero of a romance by Miguel de Cervantes. | | OTHER FORMS: | quix·oti·cal·ly —ADVERB
quixo·tism (kwks-tz m) —NOUN
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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