FATHOM • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Fathom

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/fˈæðəm/ Listen

verb

Fathom v. t. (past & past part. fathomed; pres. part. fathoming)

To encompass with the arms extended or encircling; to measure by throwing the arms about; to span. (Obs.)

To measure by a sounding line; especially, to sound the depth of; to penetrate, measure, and comprehend; to get to the bottom of. "The page of life that was spread out before me seemed dull and commonplace, only because I had not fathomed its deeper import."

noun

Fathom n.

A measure of length, containing six feet; the space to which a man can extend his arms; used chiefly in measuring cables, cordage, and the depth of navigable water by soundings.

The measure or extant of one's capacity; depth, as of intellect; profundity; reach; penetration. (R.) "Another of his fathom they have none To lead their business."

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Etymology of 'Fathom'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Fathom" Quotes from Famous Books

... his companions, and the end of his thinking was this: There was a mighty pole in the cave, green wood of an olive tree, big as a ship's mast, which Polyphemus purposed to use, when the smoke should have dried it, as a walking staff. Of this he cut off a fathom's length, and his comrades sharpened it and hardened it in the fire and then hid it away. At evening the giant came back and drove his sheep into the cave, nor left the rams outside, as he had been ...

— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... at least one man among my companions there who contrived, by devices which I never sought to fathom, to pass the immitigable outer gates themselves every day, attend to his business in the outer world for as many hours as might serve, returning quietly in time for last roll-call. He took a keeper with him, of course, but only in order to assuage possible anxiety ...

— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... that it is, most certainly. That profound wisdom; that toleration of the weaknesses of men; that sympathy with men, who cannot fathom the mysteries of life, and the struggle for life of all things that love life; that spirit I call God, and I don't think that a better name has been ...

— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... not in the subterranean gallery of the Rue Saint-Denis. Instead of the ancient stone, instead of the antique architecture, haughty and royal even in the sewer, with pavement and string courses of granite and mortar costing eight hundred livres the fathom, he would have felt under his hand contemporary cheapness, economical expedients, porous stone filled with mortar on a concrete foundation, which costs two hundred francs the metre, and the bourgeoise masonry known as a petits materiaux—small ...

— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... correlation of natural forces. None of these has enabled us to penetrate the mysterious inner-chamber of life itself. For reasons obviously connected with our own welfare, He, from whom alone are "the issues of life," seems to have ordained that we should fathom the depths of both physical and chemical force, and beneficently wield and direct them to our own uses. But this vital force; this something that stands apart from and is essentially different from all other kinds of force, is of a nature that baffles all our efforts ...

— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

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