Bathymetric

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Pertaining to the study or measurement of the depths of oceans, seas, or lakes
2. Connected with determining underwater terrain features and depth contours
3. Describes data or methods concerned with charting the underwater topography

Etymology: Bathymetric is built from two Greek elements: "bathys", meaning "deep", and "metron", meaning "measure". The first half, bathy-, appears in many scientific coinages, while the second, -metric, is the familiar suffix found in words like "geometric" and "symmetric". Put together, the word describes the business of measuring depth. The pairing makes sense once you see how the parts work. Bathy- supplies the sense of depth, and -metric turns the idea of measuring into an adjective, so something bathymetric is connected with mapping how deep water lies. The same Greek root bathys also gives "bathysphere", the spherical diving vessel, and "bathyscaphe", a deep-sea submersible.