chimera, chimæra
(kɪˈmɪərə, kaɪ-)
Forms: 4 chymere, 5–7 chimere; 4–7 chymera, (6 chemera), 7 chymæra, 6– chimæra, chimera.
[ME. chimere, a. F. chimère, ad. L. chimæra, a. Gr. χίµαιρα she-goat or monster, f. χίµαρ-ος he-goat. Since the 16th c. the earlier form from Fr. has been supplanted by its Latin original. As chimere was certainly (ˈtʃɪmɛr), the two spoken forms are practically distinct words.]
1. a. A fabled fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology, with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail (or according to others with the heads of a lion, a goat, and a serpent), killed by Bellerophon.
| 1382 Wyclif Bible Prol. 31 Beestis clepid chymeres, that han a part of ech beest, and suche ben not, no but oonly in opynyoun. c 1430 Lydg. Bochas i. lv, The Chimere of Licy. a 1528 Skelton P. Sparowe 1334 By Chemeras flames. 1600 Fairfax Tasso viii. xviii, New Chimeres, Sphinges, or like monsters bred. 1613 Heywood Silver Age i. i. Wks. 1874 III. 89 That monstrous beast of Cicily Cal'd the Chimera. 1667 Milton P.L. ii. 628 All monstrous, all prodigious things..worse Then fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, Gorgons and Hydra's, and Chimera's dire. 1751 Smollett Per. Pic. lxiv, A convocation of chimeras breathing fire and smoke. 1831 Landor Siege Ancona Wks. 1846 II. 584 The flames and coilings of the fell Chimæra. |
b. Any fish of the family Chimæridæ; = rabbit-fish. (Cf. chimæroid a.)
| 1804 Holloway & Branch Brit. Museum III. 56 The Chimæra, or Chimæra Monstrosa, belongs to that class of fish which have close gills and cartilages instead of bones. 1808 E. Donovan Nat. Hist. Brit. Fishes V. Plate CXI, There are two species of the Chimæra genus, Monstrosa, and Callorhynchus; the latter of which is distinguished by the name of Southern Chimera and Elephant Fish. 1836 W. Yarrell Hist. Brit. Fishes II. 365 The Northern Chimæra is represented as a fish of singular appearance and beauty, a native of the northern seas only, where it seldom exceeds three feet in length. 1848 [see rabbit n.1 4]. 1969 A. Wheeler Fishes Brit. Isles 111 The chimaeras are deep-water fishes, living on or below the edge of the continental shelf. |
2. In Painting, Arch., etc. A grotesque monster, formed of the parts of various animals.
| [1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xix. xxxvii. (1495) 879 Somtyme they..bryngyth to lesynges as he dooth that paynteth Chymera with thre heedes.] 1634 Jackson Creed vii. xi, Chimeras, or painted devices which represent no visible creature. 1636 B. Jonson Discov., He complains of their painting Chimaeras, by the vulgar unaptly called grotesque. 1711 Addison Spect. No. 83 ¶7 The third Artist..had an excellent Hand at a Chimera. 1876 H. N. Humphreys Coin-Coll. Man. vi. 66 The Chimæra enriching the helmet is the monster Scylla. |
3. fig. with reference to the terrible character, the unreality, or the incongruous composition of the fabled monster: a. A horrible and fear-inspiring phantasm, a bogy.
| 1514 Barclay Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (1847) 72 Against the Chimer here stoutly must he fight. 1601 Cornwallyes Ess. xvii, Chimeræs, begotten betweene Feare, and Darknesse, which vanish with the Light. 1730 Thomson Autumn 1145 Full of pale fancies and chimeras huge. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) I. v. 429 The nation..exorcised the chimæra with a few resolute words for ever. |
b. An unreal creature of the imagination, a mere wild fancy; an unfounded conception. (The ordinary modern use.) See also bombinate.
| 1587 Golding De Mornay xxv. 379 How could that Chymera haue come in any mans minde? c 1645 Howell Lett. I. i. iv, That golden myne is proved a meer Chymera, an imaginary airy myne. 1712 Arbuthnot John Bull ii. iii, Exploded chimera's, the perpetuum mobile..philosopher's stone, etc.. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. II. 18 The sea-snake, or serpent of the ocean, is no longer counted a chimera. 1835 Sir J. Ross N.W. Pass. xv. 237 The ‘chimera of a north-west passage’, as it has been termed. |
c. An incongruous union or medley.
| 1832 G. Downes Lett. Cont. Countries I. 27 The exterior of the Church..is a chimera in architecture, being Doric below, Corinthian above, and Ionic in the middle. |
d. Biol. [ad. G. chimäre (H. Winkler 1907, in Ber. d. Deut. Bot. Ges. XXV. 574).] An organism (commonly a plant) in which tissues of genetically different constitution co-exist as a result of grafting, mutation, or some other process.
| 1911 D. H. Campbell in Amer. Naturalist XLV. 44 Such monstrous forms, for which Winkler proposes the name ‘chimæra’, are not hybrids in any true sense of the word, but have arisen from buds in which there was a mere mechanical coalescence of tissue from the two parent forms at the junction of the stock and graft. 1926 J. S. Huxley Ess. in Pop. Sci. xviii. 259 If the front half of one species be grafted on to the back half of another species, both continue to differentiate, and a chimaera or mosaic organism is produced. 1968 Nature 9 Nov. 596 (heading) Mouse chimaeras obtained by the injection of cells into the blastocyst. 1969 New Scientist 16 Jan. 133/1 Cytogeneticists have found human mosaic individuals, trisomics and chimeras. |
4. attrib. and Comb.
| 1619 Bp. J. Williams Serm. Apparell (1620) 20 For a woman..to come vnto a Church Chimæra-like..halfe male and halfe female. 1761 F. Sheridan S. Bidulph III. 138 Our sex, said he, have not such chimæra notions. |
Hence chiˈmeraship nonce-wd.
| 1843 Carlyle Past & Pr. (1858) 170 His serene Chimeraship. |