Fathom Britain, it can mean the quantity of wood in a pile of any length measuring square in cross section. In Hungary the square fathom ("") is still in use as an unofficial measure of land area, primarily for small lots suitable for construction. Fathom A fathom is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems equal to , used especially for measuring the depth of water. There are two yards (6 feet) in an imperial fathom. Originally the span of a man's outstretched arms, the size of a fathom has varied slightly depending on whether it
Fathom the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom defined the length of the international yard to be exactly 0.9144 metre. The British Admiralty defined a fathom to be a thousandth of an imperial nautical mile (which was 6080 ft) or . In practice the "warship fathom" of exactly was used in Britain and the United States. No conflict in the real world existed as depths on Imperial nautical charts were indicated in feet if less than and in fathoms for depths above that. Until the 19th century in England, the length of the fathom was