Don Quixote attacking a windmill believing it to be a ferocious giant

Illustration: Gustave Doré, 1863

A.Word.A.Daywith Anu Garg

windmill

PRONUNCIATION:

(WIND-mil) 

MEANING:

noun:	1. A machine powered by wind.
	2. An imagined enemy, opponent, or threat.
verb tr., intr.:	To move or to cause to move like a windmill.

ETYMOLOGY:

From wind, from Old English wind + mill, from Old English mylen, from Latin mola (grindstone, mill), from molere (to grind). Earliest documented use: 1230.]

NOTES:

The metaphorical sense of windmill comes spinning out of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, in which our deluded hero mistakes windmills for towering foes and launches a one-man attack against renewable energy.

To tilt at windmills now means to battle imaginary enemies. It’s an expression that reminds us: sometimes the real enemy isn’t the windmill — it’s the wind between our ears.