English · Idiom Candidate

tilt at windmills

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To attack or challenge something that is perceived as wrong or unjust, but is actually harmless or unimportant

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

tấn công hoặc thách thức những thứ được cho là sai lầm nhưng thực sự vô hại

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to joust at windmills

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

For the past 12 years the Government have behaved like latter day Don Quixotes tilting at windmills and all the other renewables.

Commitment and dedication remained, but tilting at windmills had to stop.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “tilt at windmills” mean?

To attack or challenge something that is perceived as wrong or unjust, but is actually harmless or unimportant Literally: to joust at windmills

Is “tilt at windmills” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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