hearth
Meaning
- The place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by at least a hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos, fireplace, oven, smoke hood, or chimney.
- A hearthstone, either as standalone or as the floor of an enclosed fireplace or oven.
- A fireplace: an open recess in a wall at the base of a chimney where a fire may be built.
- The lowest part of a metallurgical furnace.
- A brazier, chafing dish, or firebox.
- Home or family life.
- A household or group in some forms of the modern pagan faith Heathenry.
Synonyms
open fireplace
cooking place
fire side
fire-place
by the fire
cooking stones
fire pit
melting chamber
finger grate
furnace chamber
fireplace in house
open furnace
furnace bed
bottom of the hearth
oven sole
oven hearth
furnace cavity
bed plate
Frequency
Pronounced as (IPA)
/hɑːθ/
Etymology
In summary
From Middle English herth, herthe, from Old English heorþ, from Proto-West Germanic *herþ, from Proto-Germanic *herþaz, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *kerh₃- (“heat; fire”). Cognate with West Frisian hurd, Dutch haard, German Herd, Swedish härd.
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Notes