词源 |
quixotic. Don Quixote de la Mancha, the lofty-minded but impractical hero of Cervantes’s novel of the same name (1605– 15), gives us this adjective embodying his characteristics. One of the great characters of literature, Don Quixote wanders the world with his squire Sancho Panza and his horse Rosinante searching for adventures in which he can be chivalrous. When he tilted with his lance at windmills, imagining them to be ene- mies, he added still another expression of frustration to the languages of many nations. See tilt at windmills. |