chimerical
/kɪˈmɛɹɪkəl/
"chimerical" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“chimerical” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Of or pertaining to a chimera.
Corpus desk
Index EN-chimerical · chimerical · English
chimerical · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chimerical |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /kɪˈmɛɹɪkəl/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “chimerical” in English
Rare enough to double-check
chimerical is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /kɪˈmɛɹɪkəl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for chimerical in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From chimera, from Latin chimaera, from Ancient Greek χίμαιρα (khímaira, “she-goat”). This term entered English in or around 1638. The correct English form is chimerical, spelled C-H-I-M-E-R-I-C-A-L.
Definition
- 1Of or pertaining to a chimera.
- 2Being a figment of the imagination; fantastic (in the archaic sense).
- 3Inherently fantastic; wildly fanciful.
- 4Resulting from the expression of two or more genes that originally coded for separate proteins.
- 5Impossible to physically produce due to having an impossibly-high saturation or luminosity, but viewable by overlaying an afterimage and a suitably-colored physical image.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how chimerical appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
a chimerical goal
"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."
Etymology
From chimera, from Latin chimaera, from Ancient Greek χίμαιρα (khímaira, “she-goat”). This term entered English in or around 1638.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.