quixote

/ˈkwɪk.sət/

Etymology

After Don Quixote.

quixote means one resembling Don Quixote; someone who is chivalrous but idealist. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 81 out of 100.

Why this word is great

QUIXOTE — [Noun] A person of chivalrous but impractically idealistic character, resembling the literary knight-errant. From the name of the fictional character Don Quixote, protagonist of Miguel de Cervantes's early 17th-century novel. Unlike an "idealist" (a sober proponent of high principles) or a "romantic" (one luxuriating in emotional passion), a quixote is defined by a sublime, tilting futility. He is the man painting his house during a hurricane, the neighbor defending a patch of crabgrass as if it were a sacred glade, the soul mailing love letters to a long-defunct address—a beautifully calibrated instrument for measuring the widening gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be, and finding the distance heroic.

noun

One resembling Don Quixote; someone who is chivalrous but idealist.“I had once determined to fix the terrible Name of some Man of War in the Front of your History, a perfect Hero, that should like another Quixot defend your Reputation right, or wrong [...].”