Word of the Day

: March 11, 2007

chimera

noun kye-MEER-uh

What It Means

1 : an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts

2 : an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially : an unrealizable dream

chimera in Context

Jared decided to leave the company upon realizing that his hopes for advancement were merely a chimera.

Did You Know?

In Greek mythology, the Chimera was a fearsome, fire-breathing monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a dragon's tail. She terrorized the people of Lycia until their king, Iobates, asked the hero Bellerophon to slay her. Iobates had an ulterior motive; his son-in-law wanted Bellerophon killed and the king was sure the Chimera would do the job. But Bellerophon called in Pegasus, the winged horse, and brought the Chimera down from above. The beast lived on in people's imaginations, and English speakers adopted her name for any similarly grotesque monster, or, later, for anything fanciful.

*Indicates the sense illustrated by the example sentence.