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CHIMERICAL
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Dictionary entry overview: What does chimerical mean?
• CHIMERICAL (adjective)
The adjective CHIMERICAL has 2 senses:
1. being or relating to or like a chimera
2. produced by a wildly fanciful imagination
Familiarity information: CHIMERICAL used as an adjective is rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Being or relating to or like a chimera
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Synonyms:
chimeral; chimeric; chimerical
Context example:
his Utopia is not as chimeric commonwealth but a practical improvement on what already exists
Pertainym:
Chimera ((Greek mythology) fire-breathing female monster with a lion's head and a goat's body and a serpent's tail; daughter of Typhon)
Derivation:
Chimera ((Greek mythology) fire-breathing female monster with a lion's head and a goat's body and a serpent's tail; daughter of Typhon)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Produced by a wildly fanciful imagination
Context example:
his Utopia is not a chimerical commonwealth but a practical improvement on what already exists
Similar:
unrealistic (not realistic)
Derivation:
chimera (a grotesque product of the imagination)
Context examples
If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
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