All 3 Uses of
fathom
in
Selected Tales, by Poe
- How have I, through the whole of a midsummer night, struggled to fathom it!†
Scene 1 *fathom = come to understand
- It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself—to offer violence to its own nature—to do wrong for the wrong's sake only—that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute.†
Scene 2unfathomable = not capable of being understoodstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unfathomable means not and reverses the meaning of fathomable. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- "Tell me, for Heaven's sake," I exclaimed, "the method—if method there is—by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this matter."†
Scene 4fathom = come to understand
Definitions:
-
(1)
(fathom as in: can't fathom) to come to understand
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Fathom can also refer to a unit of measure for water depth (6 feet), or to the act of measuring the depth of water.