quixotic
Americanadjective
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(of a goal, action, or impulse) characterized by impractical idealism or by extravagant chivalry and romantic imagination.
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impulsive, overeager, or capricious.
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(sometimes initial capital letter) resembling or befitting Don Quixote.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of quixotic
First recorded in 1805–15; (Don) Quixote + -ic
Explanation
Use quixotic for someone or something that is romantic and unrealistic, or possessed by almost impossible hopes. Your quixotic task is easy to understand, if difficult to achieve: establish world peace. What a wonderful word quixotic is! While it is most often used to mean equally impractical and idealistic, it also has the sense of romantic nobility. Its source is from the great Spanish novel "Don Quixote," whose title character is given to unrealistic schemes and great chivalry. In the middle of a recession and high unemployment, it would be quixotic to imagine that you could quit your job and find another easily.
Vocabulary lists containing quixotic
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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Scrabble: High Scoring Words
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40 SAT words Beginning with "Q"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Pretty sure. I love what I do. I have a real job. I can affect policy from here. …I’d have to give this up for a quixotic thing that I couldn’t possibly win.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 19, 2026
Lope de Vega wrote of honor and conflict a few doors down from where Miguel de Cervantes penned the first quixotic quest.
From Salon ● Jun. 23, 2026
"Andy has such a head of steam it would be quixotic," one Labour MP, who asked not to be named, told AFP, adding that a contest would be "hugely expensive and time-consuming".
From Barron's ● Jun. 23, 2026
Togelius’s and Hassabis’s origin stories are relics of a bygone era where gaming was the money-making machine and AI was a quixotic science experiment.
From MarketWatch ● May 23, 2026
This last question kept popping up: How could a stock picker be losing so much on this one quixotic bond market bet?
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
