Extravagantly romantic; aiming at an extravagantly ideal standard; visionary, ridiculously venturesome or romantic.
[After Don Quixote, the hero of Ceorvantes’ romance of that name, who is pictured as a half crazy champion of the supposed distressed, and a caricature of the knight-errants of the Middle Ages.]
This is one word that I’d rather see keep its meaning closer to describing somebody who is fighting windmills for idealogical reasons. That kind of person may be described as erratic, but is very predictable: if there’s a windmill, the person will charge it
Welcome to the forum. Although your idea of preserving the original definition of quixotic is admirable, doing so would require that speakers know something about Don Quixote.
I don’t run into too many younger people these days who are familiar with Don Knotts, much less the quixotic character by Cervantes.
Welcome to the forum. Although your idea of preserving the original definition of quixotic is admirable, doing so would require that speakers know something about Don Quixote.
I don’t run into too many younger people these days who are familiar with Don Knotts, much less the quixotic character by Cervantes.
Are you putting Knotts into the same category as Cervantes???
The Andy Griffith Show was set in a Utopian little town with no crime, good fishing, home cooking, no real schedules to speak of, front porches where people sat and talked with their neighbors, a few goofy characters to make like interesting, chivalry, honesty, decent weather, and a good country music.
Nope!
Peter liked adventure, something other than chasing moonshiners around and sending out a stupid deputy to find some town drunk pestering the neighbors, and then sitting down to
homefried chicken and okra.
