English Dictionary

fathom

/ˈfað(ə)m/

noun

(chiefly nautical, historical) Originally, the distance between an adult man's arms stretched out away from the sides of his torso so that they make a straight line perpendicular to his body, measured from the tips of the longest fingers of each hand, generally reckoned to be six feet (about 1.8 metres); subsequently used as a unit for water depth but now generally replaced by the metre.

The depth of the ocean is difficult to fathom.

意味（1）

(chiefly nautical, historical) Originally, the distance between an adult man's arms stretched out away from the sides of his torso so that they make a straight line perpendicular to his body, measured from the tips of the longest fingers of each hand, generally reckoned to be six feet (about 1.8 metres); subsequently used as a unit for water depth but now generally replaced by the metre.

[T]he ſhipmen deemed that they drew neere to ſome countrey: And ſounded, and found it twentie fathoms: and when they had gone a little further, they ſounded againe, and found it fifteene fathoms.

意味（2）

(chiefly in the plural) An unspecified depth.

意味（3）

(archaic or obsolete) Depth of insight; mental reach or scope.

Another of his fathome they haue not / To leade their buſineſſe, […]

意味（4）

The act of stretching out one's arms away from the sides of the torso so that they make a straight line perpendicular to the body.

意味（5）

Someone or something that is embraced.

Thy Bride, thy choice, thy vvife, / She that is novv thy fadom, […] Kneele at thy feete, obay in euerie thing, / So euerie Father is a priuate King.

意味（6）

(figuratively) Control, grasp.

So; novv knovv I vvhere I am, me thinkes already / I graſpe beſt part of the Autumnian bleſſing / In my contentious fadome, […]