Chimera

Quick meaning: Chimera is a noun meaning (mythology, art) Any fantastic creature combining parts from different animals.

Meaning

(mythology, art) Any fantastic creature combining parts from different animals.

More Meanings

1. (figurative) A foolish, incongruous, or vain thought or product of the imagination.
2. (figurative) Anything composed of very disparate parts.
3. (architecture) A grotesque like a gargoyle, but without a spout for rainwater.
4. (genetics) An organism with genetically distinct cells originating from two or more zygotes.
5. (figurative) Synonym of bogeyman: any terrifying thing, especially as an unreal, imagined threat.
6. (Greek mythology) Alternative letter-case form of Chimera, a supposed monster in Lycia with the head of a lion, body of a goat, and tail of a dragon or serpent, killed by the hero Bellerophon.
7. (zoology) Alternative form of chimaera, a cartilaginous marine fish in the subclass Holocephali and especially the order Chimaeriformes, with a blunt snout, long tail, and a spine before the first dorsal fin.

Example Sentences

...beestis clepid chymeres, that han a part of ech beest, and suche ben not, no but oonly in opynyoun.

Bellerophon was commanded to destroy this monster, and with the assistance of the flying horse, Pegasus, he slew the chimera.

The game includes a bunch of chimeras, with the lion heads shooting fire and the snake tails whipping around trying to bite the player.

A voice had called him forth to think in solitude—a voice he durst not resist, the awful one of the future. It fell on John's heart like the mutter of approaching desolation. He heard it coming on, as the spell-bound in a hideous dream await, wordless and shivering, the progress of some chimera monster, whose grasp is to crush and destroy.

Word Forms

• chimeras
• chimaera
• chimere

Synonyms for chimera

Depending on context, synonyms include rabbitfish, ratfish, bogeyman, chimaera.

Antonyms for chimera

Common opposites include monolith.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include chimaera, periclinal, fairy, spectre, dream, fantasy.

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