Word.ws English Dictionary

threw one's cap over the windmill

threw one's cap over the windmill is the simple past of throw one's cap over the windmill.

Meaning of throw one's cap over the windmill

Verb

throw one's cap over the windmill (third-person singular simple present throws one's cap over the windmill, present participle throwing one's cap over the windmill, simple past threw one's cap over the windmill, past participle thrown one's cap over the windmill)

  1. (dated, idiomatic) To act in a bizarre, eccentric or immoral manner.
    • Awfully commercial, women nowadays. Our grandmothers threw their caps over the mills, of course, but, by Jove, their granddaughters only throw their caps over mills that can raise the wind for them.1892, Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, Act III

Questions about threw one's cap over the windmill

What is threw one's cap over the windmill the simple past of?
Threw one's cap over the windmill is the simple past of throw one's cap over the windmill.

Words near threw one's cap over the windmill in the dictionary

  1. threw off balance
  2. threw off on
  3. threw off the trail
  4. threw on
  5. threw one's back out
  6. threw one's cap over the windmill
  7. threw one's hat in the ring
  8. threw one's hat into the ring
  9. threw one's hat over the fence
  10. threw one's hat over the wall
  11. threw one's hotdog down someone's hallway

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: threw one's cap over the windmill (page history and authors); throw one's cap over the windmill (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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