chimericalとは意味・読み方・使い方

語源

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

発音

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

形容詞

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).
   • 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 かつ Aylmer Maude)

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

   a chimerical goal

3. Inherently fantastic; wildly fanciful.
   • 1837, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ethel Churchill, volume 3, 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.

下位語

(color):

• hyperbolic
• self-luminous
• stygian

派生語

• chimerically