Word.ws English Dictionary

chimaera

chimaera noun: a cartilaginous marine fish in the subclass Holocephali and especially the order Chimaeriformes, with a blunt snout, long tail, and a spine before the first dorsal fin. Also the alternative spelling of chimera.

Noun

chimaera (plural chimaeras)

  1. A cartilaginous marine fish in the subclass Holocephali and especially the order Chimaeriformes, with a blunt snout, long tail, and a spine before the first dorsal fin
    Synonyms:
    ghost shark

Proper noun capitalized: Chimaera

Chimaera

  1. (alternative, dated) Alternative form of Chimera.
    • CHIMÆRA, in geography, a port town of Turky in Europe, ſituated at the entrance of the gulph of Venice, in the province of Epirus, about thirty-two miles north of the city Corfu, near which are the mountains of Chimæra, which divide Epirus from Theſſaly...1771, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1st ed., Vol. II, p. 184

Also used as

chimaera is also the alternative spelling of chimera.

Synonyms of chimaera

Forms of chimaera

Noun
pluralchimaeras
alternative formchimera
alternative formchimæra
Proper noun
alternative formChimæra

Origin of chimaera

A variant of chimera under influence from Latin Chimaera.

As a mythological beast, a variant of earlier Chimera under influence from Latin Chimaera. As a placename, directly from Latin Chimaera.

Words formed from chimaera

Questions about chimaera

What does chimaera mean?
Chimaera means a cartilaginous marine fish in the subclass Holocephali and especially the order Chimaeriformes, with a blunt snout, long tail, and a spine before the first dorsal fin.
What part of speech is chimaera?
Chimaera can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of chimaera?
The plural of chimaera is chimaeras.

Words near chimaera in the dictionary

  1. chim
  2. Chima
  3. chimabachid
  4. Chimacum
  5. chimaek
  6. chimaera
  7. chimaeral
  8. chimaeras
  9. chimaeric
  10. chimaerical
  11. chimaerid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chimaera (page history and authors); Chimaera (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “chimaera.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chimaera. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.