Tilting at windmills 1988, which contained the song "Tilting at Windmills". Tilting at windmills Tilting at windmills is an English idiom that means attacking imaginary enemies. The expression is derived from the 1605 novel "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes, and the word "tilt" in this context comes from jousting. The phrase is sometimes used to describe either confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. It may also connote an importune, unfounded, and vain effort against adversaries real or imagined for a vain goal. The phrase comes from
Windmills in Leeuwarden Windmills in Leeuwarden The city of Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands has had at least 130 windmills over the centuries. Only one, the "Froskepôlemolen" survives today within Leeuwarden. Six other mills which have stood in Leeuwarden survive elsewhere in the Netherlands. The mills had a wide range of industrial and agricultural uses. The industrial uses include the processing of bark for tanning leather, the fulling of cloth, the production of cement, the production of dyes, the extraction of oil (including the production of paints), the grinding of tobacco to produce snuff, the production of gunpowder, and the sawing of timber. Agricultural