chimera

noun

chi·​me·​ra kī-ˈmir-ə 

kə-

1

a

capitalized : a fire-breathing she-monster in Greek mythology having a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail

b

: an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts

2

: an illusion or fabrication of the mind

especially : an unrealizable dream

a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayer

—John Donne

His utopia was a chimera.

3

: an individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution

A hybrid created through fusion of a sperm and an egg from different species is a chimera.

Did you know?

“In head and shoulders, she was like a lion, / in back and tail, a snake, and in the middle, / a she-goat, and she breathed a dreadful blast / of blazing fire.” So did Homer describe the fearsome Chimera in The Iliad (as translated by scholar Emily Wilson in 2023). The Chimera terrorized the people of Lycia until slain by the hero Bellerophon, but the beast lived on in people’s imaginations, and English speakers adopted her name for any monster similarly composed of the parts of different animals. Later, chimera took on another meaning that is common in today’s lexicon: “an illusion of the mind, especially an unrealized dream.” This sense of chimera is often used to refer to a fantasy or delusion.

Synonyms

• conceit
• daydream
• delusion
• dream
• fancy
• fantasy
• phantasy
• figment
• hallucination
• illusion
• nonentity
• phantasm
• fantasm
• pipe dream
• unreality
• vision

Examples of chimera in a Sentence

Economic stability in that country is a chimera.

a monster in the closet would not have been the first chimera that the boy had seen in his mind's eye

Recent Examples on the Web

And sure enough, the mouse that grew from that embryo was a chimera, displaying these traits along with those of the original embryo donor. —Michael Irving, New Atlas, 28 Nov. 2024

The record’s new-wave ditties are an amalgamation of strange but immediately identifiable components, chimeras of ’60s pop à la Lesley Gore and the frenzied shred of a skateboarding compilation. —Pitchfork, 3 Dec. 2024

The answer to all these questions is My Lady Jane, which blends together what should be a hodgepodge of mismatched elements into a wildly entertaining historical romance/fantasy/comedy/action chimera. —Matt Kamen, WIRED, 30 Nov. 2024

Sing Sing may be an awkward chimera of a film, combining vibrant source material with synthetic attempts to serve as a star vehicle, but its insistence on the healing capacity of art is enough to soften the hardest of hearts. —Alison Willmore, Vulture, 12 July 2024

Word History

Etymology

Latin chimaera, from Greek chimaira she-goat, chimera; akin to Old Norse gymbr yearling ewe, Greek cheimōn winter — more at hibernate

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Podcast

Get Word of the Day delivered to your inbox!

Kids Definition

chimera

noun

chi·​me·​ra kī-ˈmir-ə 

kə-

: something made up by or existing only in the mind

chimerical

-ˈmer-i-kəl

-ˈmir-

adjective

Medical Definition

chimera

noun

chi·​me·​ra

variants or chiefly British chimaera

kī-ˈmir-ə, kə- 

: an individual, organ, or part containing tissue with two or more genetically distinct populations of cells