Fathom vs Penetrate - What's the difference?
fathom | penetrate |
(obsolete) Grasp, envelopment, control.
(nautical) A measure of length corresponding to the outstretched arms, standardised to six feet, now used mainly for measuring depths in seas or oceans.
(by extension) Mental reach or scope; penetration; the extent of capacity; depth of thought or contrivance.
* Shakespeare
(archaic) To encircle with outstretched arms, especially to take a measurement; to embrace.
To measure the depth of, take a sounding of.
(figuratively) To get to the bottom of; to manage to comprehend (a problem etc.).
To enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.
* {{quote-book, year=1879, title=The Telephone, the Microphone and the Phonograph
, author=Th Du Moncel, page=166, publisher=Harper
, passage=He takes the prepared charcoal used by artists, brings it to a white heat, and suddenly plunges it in a bath of mercury, of which the globules instantly penetrate the pores of charcoal, and may be said to metallize it.}}
(figuratively) To achieve understanding of, despite some obstacle; to comprehend; to understand.
* Ray
To affect profoundly through the senses or feelings; to move deeply.
* M. Arnold
To infiltrate an enemy to gather intelligence.
To insert the penis into an opening, such as a vagina or anus. (rfex)
In figuratively|lang=en terms the difference between fathom and penetrate
is that fathom is (figuratively) to get to the bottom of; to manage to comprehend (a problem etc) while penetrate is (figuratively) to achieve understanding of, despite some obstacle; to comprehend; to understand.As verbs the difference between fathom and penetrate
is that fathom is (archaic) to encircle with outstretched arms, especially to take a measurement; to embrace while penetrate is to enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.As a noun fathom
is (obsolete) grasp, envelopment, control.fathom
English
Noun
(en noun)- Another of his fathom they have none / To lead their business (Othello, I.i. 151-2).
Synonyms
*(measure of length corresponding to the outstretched arms) braceVerb
(en verb)- I can't for the life of me fathom what this means.
Synonyms
* fathom out, figure out, puzzle out, work outExternal links
* * *penetrate
English
(Penetration)Verb
(penetrat)- Light penetrates darkness.
- I could not penetrate Burke's opaque rhetoric.
- things which here were too subtile for us to penetrate
- to penetrate one's heart with pity
- The translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style.
- (Shakespeare)