plumb
plumb /pl'ʌm/ (plumbs plumbing plumbed)
1 [VERB] V n
If you plumb something mysterious or difficult to understand, you succeed in understanding it. (LITERARY)
She never abandoned her attempts to plumb my innermost emotions...
= fathom
2 [VERB] V n
When someone plumbs a building, they put in all the pipes for carrying water.
She learned to wire and plumb the house herself.
3 [PHRASE] V inflects, oft PHR of n
If someone plumbs the depths of an unpleasant emotion or quality, they experience it or show it to an extreme degree.
They frequently plumb the depths of loneliness, humiliation and despair...
4 [PHRASE] V inflects, oft PHR of n
If you say that something plumbs new depths, you mean that it is worse than all the things of its kind that have existed before, even though some of them have been very bad.
Relations between the two countries have plumbed new depths...plumb line (plumb lines)
[N-COUNT]
A plumb line is a piece of string with a weight attached to the end that is used to check that something such as a wall is vertical or that it slopes at the correct angle.
1 [VERB] V n
If you plumb something mysterious or difficult to understand, you succeed in understanding it. (LITERARY)
She never abandoned her attempts to plumb my innermost emotions...
= fathom
2 [VERB] V n
When someone plumbs a building, they put in all the pipes for carrying water.
She learned to wire and plumb the house herself.
3 [PHRASE] V inflects, oft PHR of n
If someone plumbs the depths of an unpleasant emotion or quality, they experience it or show it to an extreme degree.
They frequently plumb the depths of loneliness, humiliation and despair...
4 [PHRASE] V inflects, oft PHR of n
If you say that something plumbs new depths, you mean that it is worse than all the things of its kind that have existed before, even though some of them have been very bad.
Relations between the two countries have plumbed new depths...plumb line (plumb lines)
[N-COUNT]
A plumb line is a piece of string with a weight attached to the end that is used to check that something such as a wall is vertical or that it slopes at the correct angle.