Dulcinea

in a village near his there was a very good-looking farm girl, whom he had been taken with at one time, although she is supposed not to have known it or had proof of it. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and she it was he thought fit to call the lady of his fancies; and casting around for a name which should not be too far away from her own, yet suggest and imply a princess and great lady, he resolved to call her Dulcinea del Toboso - for she was a native of El Toboso -, a name which seemed to him as muscial, strange and significant as those others that he had devised for himself and his possessions.
Don Quixote, Part I Ch. I
translated by J.M. Cohen

Dul*cin"e*a (?), n. [Sp., from Dulcinea del Toboso the mistress of the affections of Don Quixote.]

A mistress; a sweetheart.

I must ever have some Dulcinea in my head. Sterne.

© Webster 1913.