fathomless

American  

[fath-uhm-lis] / ˈfæð əm lɪs /

adjective

1. impossible to measure the depth of; bottomless.

2. impossible to understand; incomprehensible.

   fathomless motives.

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fathomless British  

/ ˈfæðəmlɪs /

adjective

1. another word for unfathomable

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Other Word Forms

• fathomlessly
  adverb
• fathomlessness
  noun

Etymology

Origin of fathomless

First recorded in 1600–10; fathom + -less

Explanation

Something fathomless is so deep or great that you can’t measure it, or so mysterious that nobody can understand it. If you were an ant, you’d probably think the kitchen sink was fathomless — and also the whole business of washing dishes! Fathomless means about the same as the more common word unfathomable. You might choose fathomless in a poem, or in any piece of writing where you want to sound a little more elegant or literary — or use three syllables instead of five! In your reading you might come across expressions like "fathomless oceans" or "the fathomless universe." Figuratively, knowledge, love, evil, and wealth are often described as fathomless.

Example Sentences

Never, since Titian, has painter given us such "strange sweet maddening eyes,"— "Fathomless dusk by night, the day lets in Glimmer of emerald,—thus those eyes of hers!"

From Some Old Time Beauties After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment by Willing, Thomson

Nothing here but illimitable mysteries, Baffling unknowledgeableness, Fathomless, fainting from square to square, Oblongs and nosey triangles, ever so nosey, Shapes rhomboidal, perchance rhombohedral—who knows?

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 by Various

Sing of the Puritans nobler nature, Fathomless as the forests he felled, Irresistible as the winds that blow.

From The Song of the Stone Wall by Keller, Helen

Om Amitaya! measure not with words      The immeasurable; nor sink the string of thought      Into the Fathomless!

From Five Years of Theosophy by Various

Fathomless, deep is my love 10To thee, my passion, my mate.

From Unwritten Literature of Hawaii The Sacred Songs of the Hula by Emerson, Nathaniel Bright

Related Words

• baffling
• impenetrable
• inconceivable
• mystifying
• opaque
• puzzling
• unfathomable
• unimaginable
• unintelligible