Definitions for chimera

• Definition
• Anagrams (246)

chimera chi·me·ra

Spelling: [ki-meer-uh, kahy-]

IPA: /kɪˈmɪər ə, kaɪ-/

Chimera is a 7 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 14 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 15 points.

You can make 246 anagrams from letters in chimera (acehimr).

Definitions for chimera

noun

1. (often initial capital letter) a mythological, fire-breathing monster, commonly represented with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.
2. any similarly grotesque monster having disparate parts, especially as depicted in decorative art.
3. a horrible or unreal creature of the imagination; a vain or idle fancy:
4. Genetics. an organism composed of two or more genetically distinct tissues, as an organism that is partly male and partly female, or an artificially produced individual having tissues of several species.

Origin of chimera

1350-1400; Middle English chimera Latin chimaera Greek chímaira she-goat; akin to Old Norse gymbr, English gimmer ewe-lamb one year (i.e., one winter) old, Latin hiems winter (see Examples for chimera

He can not easily believe it to be simply a chimera of an overwrought brain.

She seemed unable to describe the chimera of her imagination.

Ah, that woman in the mask, that chimera of a night, that fancy of an hour!

A peasant war could at the moment be only a chimera, impossible of realization.

Do not delude me with a chimera, and above all do not tempt me to sacrifice my honour to it.

The chimera and other animal monsters occur only as figments of the mind.

For it was evident that to them, this chimera was still real.

After the war, chimera was edited by poet Barbara Howes and Ximena de Angulo.

In the Iliad, a chimera is a grotesque animal jumble, “lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle.”

Was it only a chimera of my unbalanced imagination—or was it actual fact?