in a perpendicular or vertical direction.
exactly, precisely, or directly.
Informal. completely or absolutely.
She was plumb mad. You're plumb right.
to test or adjust by a plumb line.
to make vertical.
Shipbuilding. horn.
to sound with or as with a plumb line.
to measure (depth) by sounding.
to examine closely in order to discover or understand.
to plumb someone's thoughts.
to seal with lead.
to weight with lead.
to provide (a house, building, apartment, etc.) with plumbing.
a weight, usually of lead, suspended at the end of a line and used to determine water depth or verticality
the perpendicular position of a freely suspended plumb line (esp in the phrases out of plumb, off plumb )
in a vertical or perpendicular line
informal (intensifier)
plumb stupid
informal exactly; precisely (also in the phrase plumb on )
to test the alignment of or adjust to the vertical with a plumb line
(tr) to undergo or experience (the worst extremes of misery, sadness, etc)
to plumb the depths of despair
(tr) to understand or master (something obscure)
to plumb a mystery
to connect or join (a device such as a tap) to a water pipe or drainage system
1250–1300; Middle English plumbe, probably < Anglo-French *plombe < Vulgar Latin *plumba, for Latin plumbum lead
To plumb a body of water, you measure its depth. To plumb a house, you connect all of its pipes. To make carpentry plumb, you get it exactly vertical. Originally, the verb plumb only meant “to measure the depth of water.” These days, if you “plumb the depths” of something, you go in deep for knowledge and experience: your Heidegger seminar may plumb the depths of German Existentialism like Jacques Cousteau plumbed the depths of the ocean.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Amanda is enraptured with its aspirational luxury: “The house had that hush expensive houses do. Silence meant the house was plumb, solid, its organs working in happy harmony.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 2026
Or maybe we’ll plumb new depths of dysfunction in the coming year.
From Salon ● Dec. 31, 2025
The songs on Del Real’s first solo album — the title yet to be revealed — plumb the depths of silence and sonic expansion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2025
Liam Dawson was trapped plumb in front and Ryan Higgins dollied a catch to backward point as Spirit's batters tried and failed to get to grips with the top T20 wicket-taker of all time.
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2025
The next day, they came back with a plumb line and a ruler to measure every distance between every component.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Plumb championed a new emergency services major that has drawn wide student interest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
About two years ago, St. Michael’s hired Richard Plumb as president.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
Meanwhile, Jack Plumb, 38, also from Suffolk, said the group and the yoga has helped battle his loneliness.
From BBC ● Apr. 3, 2026
Delivering the appeal judges' ruling, Lord Justice Edis said Plumb was "obsessed" with Ms Willoughby.
From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2025
Isaac Plumb had been commissioned and transferred to another company and Whitney was with the pioneers.
From Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 As Private, Sergeant and Lieutenant in the Sixty-First Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry by Fuller, Charles Augustus
Russo is a good guy, yes, and one for whom we root, but in his effort to protect his daughter, he plumbs seemingly bottomless depths of humiliation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 12, 2026
Based on the 2023 Warren Zanes book of the same name, the film plumbs Springsteen’s life and career through the creative process, during the making of his 1982 acoustic album “Nebraska.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2025
In keeping with its title, “Choreomaniacs,” which seems to pick up where “Revolver” leaves off, plumbs wilder depths.
From New York Times ● Apr. 24, 2023
Among these some 300 pages are gems, including “Among the Trees,” by poet Carl Phillips, who plumbs the human connections that can be forged in a forest.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 12, 2023
George Loft took the basket to his mother, who counted the plumbs, and finding them right in number and that they were sound, good fruit, sent out to know the price.
From The Bad Family & Other Stories by Fenwick, E. (Eliza)
Her 2022 debut novel, “Aesthetica,” plumbed the lengths one aged-out influencer is willing to go to reverse her cosmetic surgeries.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026
Even though the S&P 500’s dividend yield is on the cusp of breaking below the record low 1% it plumbed at the peak of the dot-com bubble, several stocks are at the other extreme.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Labour is trailing in the polls and the prime minister's personal ratings have plumbed the depths.
From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2026
For proof of the formula’s resilience, look no further than the success of VH1’s “Behind the Music” series, which plumbed the depths of dozens of rock ’n’ roll train wrecks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 17, 2025
“It isn’t a proper holiday until we’ve plumbed every available sewer.”
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
Zoe, who lives in North Oxford, is now debt-free and completing a plumbing apprenticeship.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
As well as Mulan Build and 38fix, there is Diandian Home Solution, an all-women plumbing and furniture assembly service operating in the southern cities of Guangzhou and Kunming.
From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026
However, when Duhamel first purchased the property, he admitted that it was in a very rustic state, telling Country Living in April 2025 that the cabin didn’t have plumbing for many years.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 1, 2026
The kitchen sinks aren’t working, and the plumbing is simultaneously screeching and groaning.
From Salon ● Jun. 28, 2026
‘Man, did you have to destroy the plumbing?’
From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
