Word of the Day
8 June 2026
fathom
A man's armspan, generally reckoned to be six feet (about 1.8 metres). Later used to measure the depth of water, but now generally replaced by the metre outside American usage.
Why this one
The unit is literally an embrace: the span of a man's outstretched arms, because that is how a leadsman hauled in wet line and counted it off. Six feet is a tidy later standardisation, not the original measure.
In use
Chart's in metres but the old man still calls it out in fathoms, so I'm doing the sums twice on every sounding.
Written by our editors to show how the term is used, not a recorded quotation.Sources
- Definition sourceWiktionary