variants
also chimeric
as in imaginary
not real and existing only in the imagination
for the time being, interplanetary travel remains a chimerical feature of life in the 21st century
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of chimerical
Meanwhile, Kilgore, his dream of fame approaching, also sees its chimerical agonies.
—
Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 14 Feb. 2025
This trial, funded by the National Cancer Institute, uses chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that are injected directly into the dog's lymph nodes.
—Dan Perry, Newsweek, 31 Jan. 2025
The reprogrammed cells were injected into a mouse embryo, resulting in a chimeric mouse with physical traits derived from both the donor embryo and the reprogrammed stem cells.
—Scott Travers, Forbes, 11 Dec. 2024
This year, Carol Kane — the chimeric renaissance woman, eternal ingenue, muse to visionaries from Sidney Lumet to Cindy Sherman — rose from the rubble, a mirage made real, in Nathan Silver's exquisite Between the Temples.
—Ew Staff, EW.com, 22 Nov. 2024
See All Example Sentences for chimerical
Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 14 Feb. 2025
This trial, funded by the National Cancer Institute, uses chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that are injected directly into the dog's lymph nodes.
—Dan Perry, Newsweek, 31 Jan. 2025
The reprogrammed cells were injected into a mouse embryo, resulting in a chimeric mouse with physical traits derived from both the donor embryo and the reprogrammed stem cells.
—Scott Travers, Forbes, 11 Dec. 2024
This year, Carol Kane — the chimeric renaissance woman, eternal ingenue, muse to visionaries from Sidney Lumet to Cindy Sherman — rose from the rubble, a mirage made real, in Nathan Silver's exquisite Between the Temples.
—Ew Staff, EW.com, 22 Nov. 2024
See All Example Sentences for chimerical
Recent Examples of Synonyms for chimerical
Adjective
-
In those meetings, our would-be bosses told us to make mock phone calls to prospective clients to gauge our ability to convince strangers about the merit of an imaginary product.—
Snigdha Poonam,
The Dial,
28 Oct. 2025
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Each one was built by a Ramona family, less to keep away any errant birds from imaginary crops at the Grange parking lot, but more to celebrate fall and enjoy a family collaboration.—
Regina Elling,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
28 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Of course, close animal encounters aren't always fictitious.—
Kelli Bender,
PEOPLE,
21 Oct. 2025
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The Half Moon Bay weigh-off began in 1974, when the California town barely edged out Circleville, Ohio, in an amiable contest for the fictitious title of pumpkin capital of the world.—
Jennifer Borresen,
USA Today,
19 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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That suits its otherworldly and somewhat formal tone, which takes viewers deep into Japan’s mythical past for a quartet of eerie tales about lonely ghosts and vengeful spirits who bring supernatural justice to selfish and immoral humans.—
Katie Rife,
Entertainment Weekly,
30 Oct. 2025
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Mateus’s approach to the declamation of text by nonprofessional actors finds its roots in movies by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, while her mythic, loamy exploration of the lives of the poor through history follows in the footsteps of the Portuguese director Pedro Costa.—
Richard Brody,
New Yorker,
30 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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First, and perhaps most obvious, the fictional thriller draws inspiration from the Manson Family's home invasion and murder of Sharon Tate and her friends, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski, as well as Steven Parent, who was visiting the home's caretaker.—
Stephanie Sengwe,
PEOPLE,
25 Oct. 2025
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The Heart of the Ocean may be fictional, but its legend feels real—modeled loosely on the Hope Diamond.—
Lilah Ramzi,
Vogue,
25 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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On the surface, the glorious black-and-white concoction, which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last May, tells the (mostly imagined) story of the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s epoch-defining 1960 movie, Breathless.—
Tomris Laffly,
Vogue,
23 Oct. 2025
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The rules of fiction require me to do this indirectly, constructing a narrator—whether a character or an imagined voice—to deliver the text at hand.—
Vauhini Vara,
The Atlantic,
16 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Peter [Merry] likes to use is that, when a caterpillar is becoming a butterfly, new ‘imaginal cells’ emerge.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
7 Aug. 2025
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With one technique, for example—called imaginal exposure—you might be asked to visualize the process of going to the airport, boarding the plane, and experiencing a bad bout of turbulence.—
Angela Haupt,
TIME,
10 May 2024
Cite this Entry
“Chimerical.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/chimerical. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.
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