{"id":7126,"date":"2025-08-05T02:14:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T02:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=7126"},"modified":"2025-08-05T02:16:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T02:16:14","slug":"word-of-the-day-chimerical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2025\/08\/05\/word-of-the-day-chimerical\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Chimerical"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to Word Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary<\/a>) is chimerical<\/em>. Pronounced \/ k\u026a\u02c8m\u025br \u026a k\u0259l, \/ or \/ k\u026a\u02c8m\u026a\u0259r \u026a k\u0259l \/ or \/ ka\u026a\u02c8m\u025br \u026a k\u0259l \/, the adjective means \u201cunreal; imaginary; visionary\u201d or \u201cwildly fanciful; highly unrealistic\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/chimerical<\/a>). The third pronunciation, with the first syllable pronounced \/ ka\u026a \/ (rhymes with \u201chigh\u201d), is the one I am used to hearing even though the first pronunciation makes more sense given normal rules of English pronunciation. Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 Dictionary, defines it as \u201cImaginary; fanciful; wildly, vainly, or fantastically conceived; fantastick\u201d (https:\/\/johnsonsdictionaryonline.com\/views\/search.php?term=chimerical<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merriam-Webster includes a third definition: \u201crelating to, derived from, or being a genetic chimera : containing tissue with two or more genetically distinct populations of cells\u201d or \u201ccomposed of material (such as DNA or polypeptide) from more than one organism\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/chimerical<\/a>), although M-W says that the word with the third meaning is usually just chimeric<\/em>. That third definition seems more closely to the original of the word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Etymonline.com defines chimerical<\/em> as \u201c\u2019pertaining to or of the nature of a chimera;\u2019 hence \u2018incapable of realization, preposterous,\u2019 1630s, from chimera<\/em> + -ical<\/em>\u201d and then lists chimeric<\/em> as appearing in the 1650s. So then we have to go to chimera<\/em>: \u201cfabulous monster of Greek mythology, slain by Bellerophon, late 14c., from Old French chimere<\/em> or directly from Medieval Latin chimera<\/em>, from Latin Chimaera<\/em>, from Greek khimaira<\/em>, name of a mythical fire-breathing creature (slain by Bellerophon) with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a dragon’s tail, a word that also meant \u2018year-old she-goat\u2019 (masc. khimaros<\/em>), from kheima<\/em> \u2018winter season,\u2019 from PIE root *gheim-<\/strong><\/a> \u2018winter\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/chimera<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The etymology website continues, \u201cSupposedly a personification of snow or winter, but the connection to winter might be no more than the ancient habit of reckoning years as \u2018winters.\u2019 It was held by the ancients to represent a volcano; perhaps it was a symbol of \u2018winter storms\u2019 (another sense of Greek kheima<\/em>) and generally of destructive natural forces. The word was used generically for \u2018any grotesque monster formed from parts of other animals;\u2019 hence the figurative meaning \u2018wild fantasy\u2019 first recorded 1580s in English (13c. in French)\u201d (ibid.). It then includes a quotation: \u201cBeestis clepid chymeres, that han a part of ech beest, and suche ben not, no but oonly in opynyoun. [Wycliffe, \u2018Prologue\u2019]\u201d [\u201cbeasts called chimeras, that have a part of each beast, and such are [they who are] not [true prelates][396]<\/sup><\/a> but only in belief\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikisource.org\/wiki\/Translation:Wycliffite_Prologue)]  (ibid.). The Prologue was the prologue to the Wycliffe Bible, which came out in the late 14th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we have another case of generalization or broadening, where a word originally meant something specific, but then the meaning broadened to include something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1916, \u201cDenmark and the United States sign a treaty whereby the Danish West Indies, including the Virgin Islands, are ceded to the US in 1917 for $25 million\u201d (https:\/\/www.onthisday.com\/events\/august\/4<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four islands known as the Danish West Indies, or the Danish Antilles, or the Danish Virgin Islands, were annexed by the Danish West India-Guinea Company at various times in the late 17th<\/sup> and early 18th<\/sup> century. And thus St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix, and Water Island became a colony of the Danes. When the Danish West India company went bankrupt, the islands fell under the rule of the Danish government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe economy of the Danish West Indies depended on slavery. Danish colonizers in the West Indies aimed to exploit the profitable triangular trade<\/a>, involving the export of firearms and other manufactured goods to Africa in exchange for slaves<\/a>, who were then transported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations. Caribbean colonies, in turn, exported sugar, rum and molasses to Denmark. After a rebellion, slavery was officially abolished<\/a> in 1848, leading to the near economic collapse of the plantations\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Danish_West_Indies<\/a>). In addition to the slave trade, the Danish Virgin Islands became a haven for pirates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But slavery was made illegal in 1848, and the plantations that had relied on slave labor lost money, and the economy of the islands basically collapsed. From that point on, the governance of the islands proved expensive (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USA expressed interest in purchasing the islands to use as naval bases before the Civil War, but the 1867 treaty that was negotiated did not pass the US Senate. At the end of the 19th<\/sup> century, treaty negotiations were resumed, but in 1902 the Danish legislature failed to approve the treaty. During WWI, negotiations resumed, in part out a fear of what the Germans would do with the islands. \u201cThe First World War had created a new situation: the relations between Germany and the United States were becoming worse as a consequence of Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare, and the Americans were concerned that after an invasion of Denmark the Germans might take control of the islands. This would be unacceptable to the Americans as stated in the Monroe Doctrine\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Danish government was convinced that the islands had to be sold for the sake of both the residents and Danish security, and that a transfer would have to be realized before the United States entered the war, so that the transfer would not become a violation of the Danish neutrality. During May 1915, Foreign Minister of Denmark Erik Scavenius contacted the American government with the message that he believed that the islands ought to be sold to the United States and that although he would not make an official proposal, \u2018if the United States gave any encouragement to the consideration of the possibility of such a sale, it might be possible\u2019\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuring 1916, the two sides agreed to a sale price of $25,000,000, and the United States accepted a Danish demand for a declaration stating that they would \u2018not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland\u2019. Although it had a claim on northern Greenland based on explorations by Charles Francis Hall and Robert Peary, the United States decided that the purchase was more important, especially because of the nearby Panama Canal. Historian Bo Lidegaard questions the utility of such a declaration, as the country had never disputed Danish sovereignty\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So for $25 million, Denmark sold what is now the US Virgin Islands to the United States. Frankly, the idea of one country selling territory to another country seems almost unbelievable, though it makes a lot more sense than the method that Russia is currently using. But realizing that such a purchase is less than 150 years old, it makes all the talk of the USA buying Greenland less chimerical. Well, except for that declaration that was included in the 1916 treaty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is from \u201c31 March 1917, after 251 years of Danish colonial rule, Dannebrog is lowered for the last time at the Governor’s mansion at Saint Croix\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Treaty_of_the_Danish_West_Indies#\/media\/File:Last_Danish_Parade_at_Saint_Croix.jpg<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to Word Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary) is chimerical. Pronounced \/ k\u026a\u02c8m\u025br \u026a k\u0259l, \/ or \/ k\u026a\u02c8m\u026a\u0259r \u026a k\u0259l \/ or \/ ka\u026a\u02c8m\u025br \u026a k\u0259l \/, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[873,874,238,395,284],"class_list":["post-7126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-chimerical","tag-denmark","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-linguistics","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7128,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7126\/revisions\/7128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}