chimérique
\ʃi.me.ʁik\
The verdict
“chimérique” is uncommon French (frequency #56,489 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #56,489
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui tient de la chimère.
Corpus desk
Index FR-chimerique · chimérique · French
chimérique · rank #56,489 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #56,489
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH chieuse
Nearest frequency peer: chieuse (-1 rank slots)
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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « chimérique »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- chercheraie…
chercheraient
43,515 corpus weight
- chies
chies
43,514 corpus weight
- chieuse
chieuse
43,513 corpus weight
- chimérique
chimérique
43,512 corpus weight
- chums
chums
43,511 corpus weight
- civiliser
civiliser
43,510 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « chimérique » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chimérique |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ʃi.me.ʁik\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #56,489 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « chimérique » en français
Rare enough to double-check
chimérique is uncommon French at frequency #56,489 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ʃi.me.ʁik\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
chimérique has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is chimérique, spelled C-H-I-M-É-R-I-Q-U-E.
Definition
- 1Qui tient de la chimère.
- 2Qui est obstiné par une chimère, par un projet irréalisable.
- 3Caractérise le développement d’embryons qui contiendraient des cellules souches humaines et animales.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how chimérique appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Les enfants jouaient dans le parc, pendant que Mme de Bray allait et venait dans l’allée qui conduisait au bois, surveillant leurs jeux à petite distance. Ils se poursuivaient, à travers les fourrés, avec des cris imités de bêtes chimériques, et les plus propres à les effrayer.
Cette Afrique où il était venu volontairement lui apparaissait encore comme un monde presque chimérique, inconnu profondément, et le peuple arabe, par toutes les manifestations extérieures de son caractère, le plongeait en un constant étonnement.
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "chimérique", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).