Meaning & use
unfathomable
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Too complex, strange or large to be understood.
Grammar: Can come before a noun or after be: an unfathomable mystery, his motives were unfathomable.
Patterns
- unfathomable to someone
Her decision to leave was unfathomable to her friends.
The scale of the universe is unfathomable.
He had an unfathomable grief that no one could reach.
adjectivebefore a nounliterary
Too deep to be measured, used of water.
Grammar: Literal, original sense, mostly in literary writing.
Patterns
- unfathomable depths
Sailors feared the unfathomable depths beneath the ship.
The lake was said to be unfathomable.
Light never reached the unfathomable trench.
Word forms
| comparative | more unfathomable |
|---|---|
| superlative | most unfathomable |
Common combinations
- unfathomable depths
- The diver peered into the unfathomable depths.
- seem unfathomable
- Such cruelty seems unfathomable.
- unfathomable mystery
- The cause of the fire remains an unfathomable mystery.
- unfathomable loss
- The village endured an unfathomable loss.
- unfathomable to
- His choice was unfathomable to his family.
Synonyms and how they differ
- incomprehensible
- Incomprehensible means impossible to understand, while unfathomable also suggests great depth or size.
- inscrutable
- Inscrutable describes a person or expression whose meaning cannot be read, rather than something huge.
- immeasurable
- Immeasurable means too large to measure, without the sense of failing to understand.
- baffling
- Baffling means confusing in a way that puzzles, and is more informal.
Opposites
Word family
- fathom verb
- to understand after much thought
- fathom noun
- a unit of water depth, about six feet
- fathomable adjective
- able to be understood
- unfathomably adverb
- in a way that cannot be understood or measured
Commonly confused: unfathomable or unforgivable?
unfathomable vs unforgivable
Unforgivable means too bad to forgive, while unfathomable means too deep or complex to understand.
Practice
The depth of the ocean trench was so great that it seemed ____ to the early explorers.
Choose one answer.
Unfathomable describes something so deep it cannot be measured or understood. Untouched may seem possible, but it says nothing about the depth.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “unfathomable”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.