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fathom[fathom 词源字典]

fathom: [OE] The underlying etymological meaning of fathom appears to be ‘stretching out, spreading’. It probably comes ultimately from the Indo-European base *pot-, *pet-, which also produced Latin patēre ‘be open’ (source of English patent) and Greek pétalos ‘outspread’ (source of English petal). Its Germanic descendant was *fath-, which produced the noun *fathmaz, direct ancestor of Old English fæthm.

Here, the notion of ‘stretching out’ seems to have spread via ‘stretching out the arms’ to, on the one hand ‘embrace’ (and one meaning of Old English fæthm was ‘embrace, bosom’), and on the other ‘length spanned by outstretched arms’ – about six feet.
=> patent, petal[fathom etymology, fathom origin, 英语词源]