A.Word.A.Day		About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us

Home Today's Word Yesterday's Word Archives FAQ

Dec 21, 2010 This week's theme No el This week's words katzenjammer quixotic divagate nyctophobia frowsty Monument to Miguel de Cervantes, Madrid, Spain In the foreground are sculptures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Photo: MarioM Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg quixotic PRONUNCIATION: (qwik-SOT-ik) MEANING: adjective: 1. Absurdly chivalrous, idealistic, or impractical. 2. Impulsive, unpredictable. ETYMOLOGY: After Don Quixote, hero of the eponymous novel by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616). Earliest documented use: 1718. NOTES: Cervantes's novel has given us another idiom, tilting at windmills: fighting with imaginary or invincible opponents. In the novel, Don Quixote perceives windmills in the distance as giants and proceeds to attack them. The word tilt here is a synonym for joust. USAGE: "Mr. Light is a gift to his community, a Robin Hood of an electrician who fiddles the meters for customers too poor to pay, and a quixotic visionary with a homemade windmill in his backyard." Kate Taylor; The Light Thief (movie review); The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Nov 18, 2010. Explore "quixotic" in the Visual Thesaurus. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

A.Word.A.Day by email: Subscribe "The most welcomed, most enduring piece of daily mass e-mail in cyberspace." Sponsored by: Give the Gift of Words Share the magic of words. Send a gift subscription of A.Word.A.Day. Anu on Words: Writer Magazine SF Gate SF Gate Globe & Mail Interact: Bulletin board Wordsmith Talk Moderated Chat Wordsmith Chat Readers' Voice AWADmail