Quijote

Quixotic derives from Don Quixote (Don Quijote de la Mancha), the protagonist of Miguel de Cervantes's novel published in two parts in 1605 and 1615. Quixote himself takes his name from quijote, an Old Spanish word for a piece of thigh armor (from Catalan cuixot, from Latin coxa, 'hip'). The knight names himself after a piece of armor — already a self-conscious performance of an identity he has chosen rather than inherited.

Don Quixote is a minor Spanish gentleman who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant. He sees windmills as giants, inns as castles, and a peasant woman as his noble lady Dulcinea. The novel — widely considered the first modern novel — is simultaneously a comedy of delusion and a tragedy of idealism. Quixote is ridiculous and magnificent, a fool who sees a better world than the one that exists.

English formed 'quixotic' by the 1718, and the word entered common use to describe impractical idealism, romantic pursuit of unrealizable goals, and noble foolishness. But the word carries an ambivalence that simpler synonyms lack. To call someone quixotic is not quite the same as calling them foolish. There is admiration in the word — even envy. The quixotic person believes in something the rest of us have given up on.

Cervantes's novel has been translated into more languages than any book except the Bible. The image of the gaunt knight charging a windmill is one of Western culture's most recognizable symbols. A 17th-century Spanish satire produced a word that captures something no other English word can: the grandeur of a doomed cause.