Back then, it meant the monstrous creature of mythology. The word “chimera” was first recorded in English (spelled “chymere”) in the Wycliffe Bible of 1382. In translating manuscripts from Greek, medieval scribes often substituted “X” for “Christ” in words like “Christmas” (“Xmas”) and “Christian” (“Xian”), as we wrote in a posting a few years back. This is why the words “Christ” and “Christmas,” for example, begin with a “k” sound (for the Greek X). In Greek writing, the word begins with X (the letter chi), which is pronounced like “k.” In English words that come from Greek, the “ch” letter combination is usually pronounced like “k.” The word in Greek means “she-goat,” and the fact that it comes from Greek accounts for its pronunciation. The chimera, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was “a fabled fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology, with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail (or according to others with the heads of a lion, a goat, and a serpent).” This is the only pronunciation given in standard dictionaries, as well as the Oxford English Dictionary. the other day and I swear he pronounced the first syllable of “chimera” like the beginning of “chicken.” Is it just me, or what? I must break off now and return to my chi-square calculations.Ī: The word “chimera” begins with a “k” sound, as in words like “character,” “chasm,” and “Christian.” The accent is on the second syllable: ki-MIR-uh. Q: I heard an interview with the historian Louis Henry Gates Jr.
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