chimerical

• chimaerical, chimærical

From chimera, from Latin chimaera, from Ancient Greek χίμαιρα (khímaira, “she-goat”). This term entered English in or around 1638.

• IPA^(key): /kɪˈmɛɹɪkəl/, /kaɪ-/
• Rhymes: -ɛɹɪkəl

chimerical (comparative more chimerical, superlative most chimerical)

1. Of or pertaining to a chimera.
2. Being a figment of the imagination; fantastic (in the archaic sense).

   a chimerical goal

   • 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet:

     "Yes; I have a turn both for observation and for deduction. The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical, are really extremely practical—so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese."

   • 1869, Leon Tolstoy, War and Peace (Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude):

     With his head bent, and his big feet spread apart, he began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbé’s plan chimerical.

3. Inherently fantastic; wildly fanciful.
   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VII, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 51:

     "You are the most charming person in the world. You are invested with a perfect halo of delight," exclaimed Henrietta. "Miss Churchill has some chimerical notion of honour in her head, but that is over now; your information does not leave a single obstacle in the way of the most perfect happiness that ever wound up a fairy tale...

4. (genetics) Resulting from the expression of two or more genes that originally coded for separate proteins.
5. (vision, of a perceived color) Impossible to physically produce due to having an impossibly-high saturation or luminosity, but viewable by overlaying an afterimage and a suitably-colored physical image.

(color):

• hyperbolic
• self-luminous
• stygian

• chimerically

• cimeliarch