a. (sb.) [f. QUIXOTE sb.]

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  1.  Of persons: Resembling Don Quixote; hence, striving with lofty enthusiasm for visionary ideals.

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1815.  J. Adams, Wks. (1856), X. 157. I considered Miranda as a vagrant, a vagabond, a Quixotic adventurer.

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1857.  Hughes, Tom Brown, I. i. This family training … makes them eminently quixotic.

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1896.  Spectator, 7 March, 336. Any one can exceed, but few can be really Quixotic.

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  2.  Of actions, undertakings, etc.: Characteristic of, appropriate to, Don Quixote.

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1851.  Gallenga, Italy, 131. A daring that would seem almost quixotic.

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1874.  Green, Short Hist., x. 719. A quixotic mission to the Indians of Georgia.

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1876.  Emerson, Ess., Ser. II. vii. 175. All public ends look vague and quixotic beside private ones.

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  b.  pl. as sb. Quixotic sentiments.

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1896.  Spectator, 7 March, 337. If … our Quixotics seem foolish or extravagant.

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  Hence Quixotical a.; Quixotically adv.; Quixoticism = QUIXOTISM.

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1850.  Fraser’s Mag., XLII. 482. No Quixotical redresser of wrong.

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1862.  Sat. Rev., XIII. 660/2. A mathematician who … Quixotically endeavoured to cure him.

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1882.  Athenæum, 23 Sept., 410/1. The symbol of his noble quixoticism.

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