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# fathom

«fathom» in Mova's school dictionary: **to understand it fully after thinking hard** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

verb (fathom, fathoms, fathomed, fathoming); noun (fathom, fathoms; old use)

### meaning for a pupil

1) To fathom something is to understand it fully after thinking hard. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/F/fathom/#m1)

2) A fathom is an old unit of length for measuring depth at sea, equal to six feet. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/F/fathom/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

in stories, to work out a puzzle or mystery; at sea, a depth measured in fathoms (ten fathoms of chain)

### examples

- I cannot fathom why the door was locked. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/F/fathom/#x1)
- No one could fathom the old man's riddle. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/F/fathom/#x2)
- He fathomed the trick at once. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/F/fathom/#x3)
- The sailors let down a rope ten fathoms long. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/F/fathom/#x4)
- Ten fathoms is about sixty feet. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/F/fathom/#x5)

### note

Each fathom is 6 feet, so multiply the number of fathoms by 6 to find feet; ten fathoms means 60 feet.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «fathom» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/F/fathom/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.