ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. Of unascertained depth; unsounded.
1628. Feltham, Resolves, II. xxvii. 85. [The river] at last … inwaves it selfe in the vnfathom’d Ocean.
1634. Milton, Comus, in Birch, Wks. (1738), I. p. vii. Halfe his wast Flood the wide Atlantique fills, And halfe the slow unfadom’d Stygian Poole.
1723. Mrs. Centlivre, Stolen Heiress, V. Ope’ earth, hide me in thy unfathom’d womb.
1757. Gray, Elegy, xiv. Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear.
1813. Shelley, Q. Mab, IV. 95. The lovely silence of the unfathomed main.
1873. Proctor, Expanse Heav., 302. He still saw that cloudy light which speaks of star depths as yet unfathomed.
b. In fig. context. (Cf. 2.)
1623. Middleton & Rowley, Sp. Gipsy, III. iii. A soul drown’d deep In the unfathom’d seas of matchless sorrows.
1683. Norris, Passions of Saviour, 5. Sing the unfathom’d depths of love.
1755. Young, Centaur, iv. The first moment man quits hold of his Creator, he drops! In distraction and ruin, how unfathomed his fall!
1817. Byron, Manfred, I. i. 243. By thy unfathom’d gulfs of guile,… I call upon thee!
1861. W. E. Collier, Hist. Eng. Lit., 146. The unfathomed depths of the poet’s mind.
2. fig. Not fully explored or known; unascertained; immense.
1659. T. Pecke, Parnassi Puerp., 181. Nature in the unfathom’d Stagyrite, Compos’d a Body, abject to the sight.
1688. Prior, Ode, vi. Man does with dangerous Curiosity These unfathom’d Wonders try.
1784. Cowper, Task, II. 538. When in him reside Grace, knowledge, comfort—an unfathom’d store.
1809. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 61. If the mere acquiescence in truth, uncomprehended and unfathomed, were sufficient.
1897. Atlantic Monthly, LXXIX. 35. That was the thought of the unfathomed might of man.
