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chimera

Etymology and origin of the English word chimera

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Formation
Borrowing
Borrowed from
Old French chimere via Middle English

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /kaɪˈmɪəɹə/, /kɪˈmɪəɹə/ (UK); /kaɪˈmɪɹə/, /kəˈmɪɹə/ (US)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English chimere,[2][3] borrowed from Old French chimere and Medieval Latin chimera,[2][4][5] from Latin chimaera,[2][6][4] from Ancient Greek χίμαιρα (khímaira, “she-goat, chimera”).[2][6][4][5] The Greek word meant a year-old she-goat, a feminine of khímaros “he-goat”, and is related to kheîma “winter”, since animals were counted by the winters they had lived.[4][5][3] English gimmer “ewe lamb” is a cognate.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology, with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail (1382).[7][5][4]

Semantic evolution

The name of the monster was used generally for any grotesque creature made of the parts of different animals, especially in art (1398).[7][5][3] Figuratively it stood first for a frightening phantom (1514) and then for a wild, unreal fancy (1587), which the OED calls the ordinary modern use.[7][4][5] In 1907 the German botanist Hans Winkler applied the word to organisms made of genetically different tissues, and English took up this biological sense by 1911.[7][2]

Timeline

  • 1382 – the mythological monster.[7][4]
  • 1398 – a grotesque monster in painting or architecture.[7]
  • 1514 – a horrible phantasm.[7]
  • 1587 – a wild fancy, an unfounded idea.[7][4][5]
  • 1638 – the adjective chimerical.[4]
  • 1804 – a fish of the family Chimaeridae.[7]
  • 1911 – in biology, an organism with tissues of different genetic make-up.[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (Greek mythology) A fire-breathing she-monster with a lion's head, goat's body and serpent's tail.
  2. An imaginary monster made of incongruous parts.
  3. An illusion or unrealizable dream.
  4. (biology) An organism made of tissues of different genetic composition.

Word family

  • chimeric
  • chimerical
  • Chimaera
  • chimere
  • gimmer

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  3. ^ a b c d Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Chimera.” Etymologically, 15 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/chimera. Accessed 15 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·