Literary notes about Chimeric (AI summary)
The term "chimeric" is often employed to evoke notions of impracticality and fanciful ideas in literature. It is used to characterize endeavors that, while imaginative, are ultimately grounded in impossibility—as when a daring plan is dismissed as a chimeric attempt [1] or when massive projects founded on unrealistic hopes are lamented as chimeric [2]. In other contexts, the word imbues scenes with an ethereal quality, conveying a sense of surreal or dreamlike longing, or describing entities that exist more in theory than reality, such as liners that vanish in their own steam [3] or theories deemed improbably chimeric yet striking [4]. Additionally, the word can capture deeply personal, almost unnameable emotions, as when feelings are portrayed as a chimeric longing [5].
- De Witte, the greatest man since Plutarch, had proposed an invasion to D’Estrades, but he treated it as a chimeric attempt.
— from Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second, Volume 2 (of 3) by Horace Walpole - What vast effort has been wasted in this chimeric hope is truly unimaginable.
— from The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science, Science and Method by Henri Poincaré - He spoke of the fictitious quarries, of the railways on paper, of the chimeric liners disappearing in their own steam.
— from The Nabob by Alphonse Daudet - "It is chimeric and improbable," he concluded, "but it is the most likely theory I have struck yet.
— from In Friendship's Guise by William Murray Graydon - I am swept away and overwhelmed by some chimeric longing that has no name.
— from The Devourers by Annie Vivanti
