Rocinante a standalone word as well as a suffix. One meaning is "before" or "previously". Another is "in front of". As a suffix, "-ante" in Spanish is adverbial; "rocinante" refers to functioning as, or being, a "rocín". "Rocinante", then, follows Cervantes' pattern using ambiguous, multivalent words, which is common throughout the novel. Rocinante's name, then, signifies his change in status from the "old nag" of before to the "foremost" steed. As Cervantes describes Don Quixote's choice of name: "nombre a su parecer alto, sonoro y significativo de lo que había sido cuando fue rocín, antes de lo que ahora era, que
Thy name is Thy name is "______, thy name is ______" is a snowclone used to indicate the completeness with which something or somebody (indicated by the second part) embodies a particular quality (indicated by the first part), usually a negative one. In most instances, the usage is an allusion to the Shakespearean play "Hamlet" (). In this work, the title character is chastised by his uncle (and new stepfather), Claudius, for grieving his father so much, calling it unmanly. In his resultant soliloquy, Hamlet denounces his mother's swift remarriage with the statement, "Frailty, thy name is woman." He thus describes all of