Word.ws English Dictionary

quixotic

UK/kwɪkˈsɒtɪk//kwɪkˈsɑtɪk/

quixotic adjective: resembling or characteristic of the Spanish chivalric hero Don Quixote; possessed with or resulting from the desire to do noble and romantic deeds, without thought of realism and practicality.

Adjective (1)

quixotic (comparative more quixotic, superlative most quixotic)

  1. Resembling or characteristic of the Spanish chivalric hero Don Quixote; possessed with or resulting from the desire to do noble and romantic deeds, without thought of realism and practicality.
    • Olivier, as you know, was quixotic, and would not permit a secret service and spies.1911 January 7, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “The Sign of the Broken Sword”, in The Innocence of Father Brown, London; New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, published 1911, →OCLC
    • The message is not subliminal. […] Characters aren’t just quixotic, they cite Cervantes to one another.2012 June 21, Alessandra Stanley, “So Sayeth the Anchorman”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
  2. Overly optimistic and moralistic.
  3. Exceedingly idealistic.
    • Call it a brain freeze, another 'Aleppo moment,' or a mere campaign stumble, but Gary Johnson has stumbled again in his quixotic presidential campaign.2016 September 29, Josh Lederman, Patrick Mairs, “Brain freeze? Gary Johnson can’t name favorite world leader”, in PBS NewsHour, Associated Press, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2018

Noun

quixotic (plural quixotics)

  1. (rare) A quixotic person or sentiment.
    • The cultural quixotics attribute the change to inscrutable "cultural factors," which is tantamount to abandoning altogether the search for explanation.1975, Michael B. Schiffer, John H. House, The Cache River Archeological Project, page 179

Adjective (2) capitalized: Quixotic

Quixotic (comparative more Quixotic, superlative most Quixotic)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of quixotic.
    • Don Quixote undertook to redress the bodily wrongs of the world, but the redressment of mental vagaries would be an enterprise more than Quixotic.1822 July 19, Thomas Jefferson, “Correspondence”, in Thomas Jefferson Randolph, editor, Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States. Now First...
    • When we see a man dramatically lamenting in a publication intended to be believed, that “The age of chivalry is gone;” that “the glory of Europe is extinguished forever!” that “the unbought grace of life (if any one knows what it is,) the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and...1830 [1791], Thomas Paine, “Rights of Man. Being an Answer to Mr Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution. Part I”, in The Political Writings of Thomas Paine, Secretary to the Committee of Foreign...

Examples of quixotic in a sentence

  • The war triggered in [Miguel de] Unamuno the realization that, in hopeless times, quixotic lunacy could save people from the paralysis that often accompanies defeatism.2017 May 29, Mariana Alessandri, “In Praise of Lost Causes”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
  • In the digital age, building a new library filled with old-fashioned printed books seems idealistic, almost quixotic.2022 April 17, Stephen Burgen, “Barcelona honours Gabriel García Márquez with new library”, in The Observer, →ISSN:

Forms of quixotic

Adjective
comparativemore quixotic
superlativemost quixotic
alternative formDon Quixotic
alternative formDon-Quixotic
alternative formQuixotic
comparativemore Quixotic
superlativemost Quixotic
Noun
pluralquixotics

Origin of quixotic

Derived from Spanish Quixote, the surname of Don Quixote, the title character in the novel by Miguel de Cervantes, + -ic.

Words formed from quixotic

Phrases with quixotic

Words that rhyme with quixotic

31 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about quixotic

What does quixotic mean?
Quixotic means resembling or characteristic of the Spanish chivalric hero Don Quixote; possessed with or resulting from the desire to do noble and romantic deeds, without thought of realism and practicality.
How do you use quixotic in a sentence?
The war triggered in [Miguel de] Unamuno the realization that, in hopeless times, quixotic lunacy could save people from the paralysis that often accompanies defeatism.
What part of speech is quixotic?
Quixotic can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce quixotic?
Quixotic is pronounced /kwɪkˈsɒtɪk/ (UK).

Words near quixotic in the dictionary

  1. Quixleys
  2. Quixote
  3. Quixote yucca
  4. Quixotean
  5. Quixotes
  6. quixotic
  7. quixotical
  8. quixotically
  9. quixotics
  10. quixotish
  11. quixotism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quixotic (page history and authors); Quixotic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-quixotic.ogg.

Cite this entry: “quixotic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quixotic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.