"throw one's cap over the windmill" meaning in English

See throw one's cap over the windmill in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-throw one's cap over the windmill.ogg [Australia] Forms: throws one's cap over the windmill [present, singular, third-person], throwing one's cap over the windmill [participle, present], threw one's cap over the windmill [past], thrown one's cap over the windmill [participle, past]
Etymology: From a passage in the novel Don Quixote in which the titular character throws his cap over a windmill that he has mistaken for a giant, as a challenge. Head templates: {{en-verb|throw<,,threw,thrown> one's cap over the windmill}} throw one's cap over the windmill (third-person singular simple present throws one's cap over the windmill, present participle throwing one's cap over the windmill, simple past threw one's cap over the windmill, past participle thrown one's cap over the windmill)
  1. (idiomatic) To act in a bizarre or eccentric manner. Tags: idiomatic Derived forms: cap over the windmill Related terms: tilt at windmills
    Sense id: en-throw_one's_cap_over_the_windmill-en-verb-3x8tO0Dh Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for throw one's cap over the windmill meaning in English (1.9kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From a passage in the novel Don Quixote in which the titular character throws his cap over a windmill that he has mistaken for a giant, as a challenge.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "throws one's cap over the windmill",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "throwing one's cap over the windmill",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "threw one's cap over the windmill",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "thrown one's cap over the windmill",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "throw<,,threw,thrown> one's cap over the windmill"
      },
      "expansion": "throw one's cap over the windmill (third-person singular simple present throws one's cap over the windmill, present participle throwing one's cap over the windmill, simple past threw one's cap over the windmill, past participle thrown one's cap over the windmill)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "cap over the windmill"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To act in a bizarre or eccentric manner."
      ],
      "id": "en-throw_one's_cap_over_the_windmill-en-verb-3x8tO0Dh",
      "links": [
        [
          "bizarre",
          "bizarre"
        ],
        [
          "eccentric",
          "eccentric"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To act in a bizarre or eccentric manner."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "tilt at windmills"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-throw one's cap over the windmill.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7a/En-au-throw_one%27s_cap_over_the_windmill.ogg/En-au-throw_one%27s_cap_over_the_windmill.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/En-au-throw_one%27s_cap_over_the_windmill.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "throw one's cap over the windmill"
}

{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "cap over the windmill"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From a passage in the novel Don Quixote in which the titular character throws his cap over a windmill that he has mistaken for a giant, as a challenge.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "throws one's cap over the windmill",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "throwing one's cap over the windmill",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "threw one's cap over the windmill",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "thrown one's cap over the windmill",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "throw<,,threw,thrown> one's cap over the windmill"
      },
      "expansion": "throw one's cap over the windmill (third-person singular simple present throws one's cap over the windmill, present participle throwing one's cap over the windmill, simple past threw one's cap over the windmill, past participle thrown one's cap over the windmill)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "tilt at windmills"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To act in a bizarre or eccentric manner."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "bizarre",
          "bizarre"
        ],
        [
          "eccentric",
          "eccentric"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To act in a bizarre or eccentric manner."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-throw one's cap over the windmill.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7a/En-au-throw_one%27s_cap_over_the_windmill.ogg/En-au-throw_one%27s_cap_over_the_windmill.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/En-au-throw_one%27s_cap_over_the_windmill.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "throw one's cap over the windmill"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.