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 an episode in the Cervantes novel wherein protagonist
Marcus Corvinus (fictional character) Marcus Corvinus (fictional character) Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus is a fictional character in a series of historical detective novels by the Scottish author David Wishart. Corvinus (he goes by his "cognomen") is of a noble Roman family, living in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. He has turned his back on the "cursus honorum", preferring a quiet private life with his wife, Rufia Perilla, the scholarly, beautiful stepdaughter of the poet Ovid. Corvinus' main activity is solving mysteries and crimes. He met his wife when she contacted him to investigate the circumstances surrounding the exile and death of her stepfather,