Chimaerical

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Devoted to ideas or plans that are wildly unrealistic or impractical ; connected with a chimera as a mythical or imaginary creature
2. Describes something based on fantasy and having little basis in reality ; pertaining to or resembling a hybrid beast from mythology
3. Characterized by visionary or fanciful qualities that defy practical achievement ; associated with or like a monstrous composite being

Etymology: The Greek word "khímaira" originally meant "she-goat," and the creature it named was a fearsome beast from myth: a lion in front, a goat in the middle, and a serpent for a tail, which the hero Bellerophon slew. Greek speakers were apparently content to call a real goat by this name, so a mythical monster and an ordinary farm animal once shared a single word. From Greek it passed into Latin as "chimaera," and English borrowed it around 1638 as "chimera." The adjective grew from that noun. "Chimerical" (spelled "chimaerical" in this older form) first described things that were actually connected to such creatures or to fabulous, made-up beasts. Over time the sense moved from the imaginary creature itself to the imaginary thing a person clings to: a hope, a scheme, or a plan that exists only in the mind. The mythical monster, a hybrid of parts that never belonged together, made a fitting image for ideas that are similarly impossible to assemble in the real world.

Synonyms: fantastical, illusory, imaginary, fanciful, dreamlike

Antonyms: real, practical, actual, concrete, tangible