a. [f. as prec. + -LESS.]
† 1. That cannot be clasped with the arms. Obs.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., II. ii. 29.
| Wil you with Counters summe | |
| The past proportion of his infinite, | |
| And buckle in a waste most fathomlesse, | |
| With spannes and inches so diminutive | |
| As feares and reasons? |
2. That cannot be measured with a fathom line; of measureless depth. Often of a metaphorical ‘abyss.’
1638. G. Sandys, A Paraphrase, Div. Poems, Ex. xv.
| God, in the fathomlesse Profound, | |
| Hath all his choice Commanders drown’d. |
1644. Milton, Educ. (1738), 126. Fathomless and unquiet deeps of controversy.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., I. (1843), 6/2. Exposing the immediate heir of the crown, his only son, to all the dangers, and all the jealousies, which particular malice, or that fathomless abyss of reason of state, might prepare and contrive against him.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, VII. vi.
| There adown | |
| The perforated rock | |
| Plunge the whole waters; so precipitous, | |
| So fathomless a fall, | |
| That their earth-shaking roar came deaden’d up | |
| Like subterranean thunders. |
1830. Tennyson, Ode to Memory, iii.
| The half-attain’d futurity, | |
| Tho’ deep not fathomless. |
1871. E. F. Burr, Ad Fidem, xv. 293. Instead of his [Saint Stephen’s] gaze stopping at the white ceiling of that council chamber, lo, it seemed to penetrate the stone and mortar as if a canopy of crystal; and, passing upward through thick clouds, upward still through fathomless azure, to rest at last on a bright and beautiful land where shone the central throne of God, and by it, in the place of highest honor, the form of Jesus Christ.
3. fig. That cannot be penetrated or fully understood; incomprehensible. Cf. FATHOM v. 4 b.
1645. Milton, Tetrachordon (1851), 184. But heer lies the fadomles absurdity, that granting this for bodily defect, they will not grant it for any defect of the mind, any violation of religious or civil society.
1713. Young, A Poem on the Last Day, I. 229.
| Religion! Oh thou cherub, heavenly bright! | |
| Oh joys unmix’d, and fathomless delight! |
1883. E. Clodd, in Knowl., 15 June, 352/2. The awe and reverence which the fathomless mystery of the universe awakens.
1891. Spectator, 14 Feb. His ignorance … is fathomless.
Hence Fathomlessly adv.
1822. Byron, Werner, IV. i. 506. Sieg. His death was fathomlessly deep in blood.
1878. A Masque of Poets, 29, A Mood of Cleopatra.
| The smile so fathomlessly bland | |
| Of the calm Queen who hears and sees | |
| Their anguish of the stiff crooked hand. |
