Definition of "chimaera" [chi•mæ•ra]

• A deep-sea cartilaginous fish of the family Chimaeridae, having a smooth-skinned tapering body and a whiplike tail. (noun)
• Genetics Variant of chimera. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "˜A man is an animal™, in which the composition involved is a being in the absolute sense, it follows ˜Therefore a man is™, but from ˜A chimaera is a non-being™, in which the composition is a being in a certain sense only, it does not follow"
• "In a mere 18 hours they transformed a TVR Chimaera (interesting choice since a chimaera is a mythological creature composed of parts of a number of animals) into the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust pictured above."
• "The dilemma for most eurosceptics who oppose British integration into a EU superstate — that political chimaera which is finally being brought into being by the EU constitutional treaty — has always been the assumption that EU membership is a take-it-or-leave-it deal."