different between mirage vs chimera

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French mirage.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m?????d?/
• IPA^(key): /m??????/
• Rhymes: -???

Noun

mirage (plural mirages)

1. An optical phenomenon in which light is refracted through a layer of hot air close to the ground, often giving the illusion of a body of water.

   Hypernym: optical illusion

   Hyponym: Fata Morgana

2. (figuratively) An illusion.

Translations

Verb

mirage (third-person singular simple present mirages, present participle miraging, simple past and past participle miraged)

1. (transitive) To cause to appear as or like a mirage.

Further reading

• mirage on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Margie, gamier, imager, maigre

French

Etymology

mirer +? -age.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mi.?a?/

Noun

mirage m (plural mirages)

1. mirage

Descendants

Further reading

• “mirage” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• émigra
• gémira
• germai
• maigre

English

Etymology

From Middle English chimere, from French chimère, from Latin chimaera, from Ancient Greek ??????? (khímaira, “chimera; female goat”), from ??????? (khímaros, “male goat”), from Proto-Indo-European *g?ei-. The Latin form has become more common from the 16th century.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /k???m????/, /k?-/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ka??mi???/, /ka??m???/
• Hyphenation: chi?me?ra

Noun

chimera (plural chimeras)

1. (Greek mythology) Alternative letter-case form of Chimera (a flame-spewing monster often represented as having two heads, one of a goat and the other of a lion; the body of a goat; and a serpent as a tail).
2. (mythology) Any fantastic creature with parts from different animals.
3. Anything composed of very disparate parts.
4. A foolish, incongruous, or vain thought or product of the imagination.
   • 1818, anonymous [Mary Shelley], chapter II, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, London: Printed for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, ?OCLC; republished as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus […] In Two Volumes, volume I, new (2nd) edition, London: Printed for G. and W. B. Whittaker, Ave-Maria-Lane, 1823, ?OCLC, page 71:

     It was very different, when the masters of the science sought immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand: but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth.
5. (architecture) A grotesque like a gargoyle, but without a spout for rainwater.
6. (genetics) An organism with genetically distinct cells originating from two or more zygotes.
7. Usually chimaera: 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.

Alternative forms

• chimaera
• chimæra

Synonyms

• (fish): ghost shark, rabbitfish, ratfish
• (anything composed of very disparate parts): motley crew

Antonyms

• (anything composed of very disparate parts): monolith

Derived terms

Related terms

• Chimaera
• chimere

Translations

See also

• Appendix:Glossary of architecture

References

Further reading

• chimera (mythology) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• chimera (genetics) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Chimaera on Wikipedia.Wikipedia (fish)
• chimera (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• haremic

Italian

Etymology

From Latin chimaera, from Ancient Greek ??????? (Khímaira).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ki?me.ra/

Noun

chimera f (plural chimere)

1. chimera
2. chimera, a kind of shark of the genus Chimaera