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American Dictionary of the English Language

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Chimera


CHIMERA, noun

1. In fabulous history, a monster with three heads, that of a lion, of a goat, and of a dragon, vomiting flames. The foreparts of the body wee those of a lion, the middle was that of a goat, and the hinder parts were those of a dragon; supposed to represent a volcanic mountain in Lycia, whose top was the resort of lions, the middle, that of goats, and the foot, that of serpents. Hence,

2. In modern usage, a vain or idle fancy; a creature of the imagination, composed of contradictions or absurdities, that can have no existence except in thought.