Dictionary

unfathomably en · ADV

Etymology

Etymology tree English unfathomable Middle English -ly English -ly English unfathomably From unfathomable + -ly.

Meanings

1. In an unfathomable manner; beyond understanding.
   • As it turns out, $1 trillion is such a large number and so far beyond the human imagination that we can’t wrap our minds around it. A trillion is a thousand times more than a billion, but let’s be honest: I could have told you it was a million times more and you probably would have believed me. Not long ago, the word trillionaire only appeared in The Wall Street Journal as hyperbole. It was an obviously exaggerated way of describing an inconceivable fortune—like calling someone a bazillionaire. But now that SpaceX is going public, it might just be something we call Elon Musk. In a way, it’s fitting that the world’s first trillionaire [of a nonhyperinflated currency] could be minted by a company with hopes of sending people to destinations unfathomably far away, since the sheer magnitude of a trillion is also impossible for us to fathom. So let’s make it possible. A million seconds ago was about two weeks ago. A billion seconds ago was in 1994, when “Pulp Fiction” was about to open in theaters. What about a trillion seconds? Whatever number is in your head, you might want to add some millennia—because a trillion seconds ago was back in the Ice Age. 2026 June 11, Ben Cohen, “You Have No Idea What a Trillion Dollars Is—and We Have Proof”, in The Wall Street Journal, archived from the original on 11 Jun 2026:

Forms

Translations (2)

nl onbegrijpelijk (beyond understanding) · es insondablemente (beyond understanding)