1. caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals; idealistic without regard to practicality 2. capricious; impulsive
This is one of many to come that appear in The Portrait: “She was, after all, a very difficult person to be around. Moody, withdrawn, quixotic.” Doesn’t it seem funny that Don Quixote’s name is pronounced kee-HOE-tay, but quixotic is pronounced kwik-SOT-ik?
Would you say that an addict who really wants to kick his habit and knows that to do so would benefit himself and those around him, but finds the goal to be unreachable, is quixotic – or just pitiful?
Hmmm. Good question! Maybe both?
The reason why quixotic and quixote are pronounced differently is because the original spanish title “Don Quijote de La Mancha” is pronounced Kee – hoh – teh.
I have never known why they changed the spelling in english to “Quixote”. But I would risk saying that it was because of the original spelling of the earlier dialects of spanish where the spanish pronunciation of “j” used to be written with an “x”. Same as “Mexico”, pronounced by Mexicans as “Meh – hee – coh”.