Wednesday, July 20, 2011

quixotic



quixotic [kwɪkˈsɒtɪk] a.

1.) Caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals; idealistic without regard to practicality.
2.) Capricious; impulsive (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language).

Etymology: From English Quixote, a visionary, after Don Quixote, hero of a romance by Miguel de Cervantes.

"While the rubbing out of obscenities is the most self-conscious (and self-defeating) effort in Catcher, the very fantasy of being the 'catcher in the rye' is itself a notion of quixotic hopefulness" (J.D. Salinger, Harold Bloom (ed.), 2008).

(Südliche Landschaft mit Don Quixote, Oswald Achenbach, 1850)

23 comments:

Salted Plum said...

Don Quixote is a shop in Japan.

Leeann @ Join the Gossip said...

I love that I can learn a new word on your blog each day!

Anonymous said...

Don Quixote was also a person, a very famous person might I add! I definetly have some quixotic tendencies. But that's what it's like when you're an artist I guess, hahaha.

Jenny Woolf said...

Don't you think that someone who heard it spoken might find it hard to spot the link, too? "Quixote" pronounced in the SPanish way, sounds so different to our English pronunciation of "quixotic"!

Kristina P. said...

I love the sound of this word. I don't use it nearly enough!

Zombie said...

Quixotic sounds exotic! lol.

D4 said...

I think this was a myspace word of the year or something. I remember something like that a while ago..

Bart said...

that is a sweet word and i shall add it to my vocabulary

Debra She Who Seeks said...

A very useful word! Great in scrabble too.

Meri said...

I'm so happy to know how to pronounce this one! I had always wondered if it had a pronunciation similar to Don Quixote... its nice to know its just phonetic!

Unknown said...

Oh one of my favourite words, right up there with quirky and quaint. I'm sure we all have our quixotic moments.

Mai Yang said...

ugh! I wanna learn this stuff..too bad I'm not too good in composing a sentence using different terms :(

Akissfromthepast said...

this is interesting blog! learning new stuff is always great :D

akissfromthepast.blogspot.com

dwizzt said...

i feel so quixotic today that i want to make love with myself.

P. Davis said...

You make me feel like an ignorant :(

Anonymous said...

Awesome word! I love th art like always "}

shari said...

I loved Catcher in the Rye. One of my favorite books when I was in high school. I think of Sookie from True Blood as a quixotic character.

Melanie said...

i'm a little smarter now.

Aguilar Elliot said...

Groovy word! i need to read don quixote one of these days.

MRanthrope said...

Re: Poor bastard Nicolas Cage.

No I haven't seen Bad Lt: Port of Call (although I do love me some Eva Mendes) but his career is still in the pits. For every good performance like Bringing Out The Dead, Matchstick Men and Bad Lieutenant we get like 5 Ghostriders, Drive Angry and National Treasures.

Unknown said...

What is that, some kind of city talk? (Wicker Man reference)

Fabrizia Spinelli said...

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Writer said...

This is possibly one of my favorite words, though I don't think I've ever actually used it.

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