Synonyms for fathom
- appreciate
- comprehend
- divine
- figure out
- grasp
- penetrate
- pinpoint
- plumb
- unravel
- apprehend
- catch
- cognize
- dig
- estimate
- follow
- gauge
- get
- have
- interpret
- know
- measure
- perceive
- pierce
- probe
- recognize
- savvy
- sound
- get to the bottom
Antonyms for fathom
EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR FATHOM
Sixty fathom of two-inch chain, and old Joe talks about parting.
But any attempt on his part to fathom it only met with cold silence.
"There's less than a fathom of water here, sir," sang out Johnson from the bows.
The look in his eyes was both sad and savage--an expression I could not fathom.
Miss Hernshaw didn't seek to fathom the mystery of his closing words.
Kirkwood groaned with despair of his inability to fathom the abyss of his self-contempt.
Yet Wrayson was uneasily conscious of something underneath it all which he could not fathom.
Is there a single spot which the eye, by any peering or prying, can fathom or exhaust?
The friend did not seek further to fathom the mystery attending this birth of the artist.
There was something strange doing, and he wished to fathom the mystery.
WORD ORIGIN
Old English fæðm "length of the outstretched arm" (a measure of about six feet), also "arms, grasp," and, figuratively "power," from Proto-Germanic *fathmaz "embrace" (cf. Old Norse faðmr "embrace, bosom," Old Saxon fathmos "the outstretched arms," Dutch vadem "a measure of six feet"), from PIE *pot(e)-mo-, from root *pete- "to spread, stretch out" (see pace (n.)). There are apparent cognates in Old Frisian fethem, German faden "thread," which OED explains by reference to "spreading out."