DictionaryAI

hearth

noun
HAHRTH/hɑɹθ/UKHAHTH/hɑːθ/

Pluralhearths

6 meanings of hearth

Practice

  1. 1
    nouncountable
    The place in a home where a fire is or was kept for heating and cooking, especially a fireplace at the foot of a chimney.

    In the medieval hall, a central hearth warmed the room and cooked the evening meal.

    Archaeologists found the remains of a stone hearth in the middle of each house.

    Similarfireplace

    Note

    For centuries this was the working center of the house, where food was cooked and warmth was made, so it stood easily for the people gathered round it: Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850) sets grieving children "by the hearth". That is the step toward home and family life.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

    • The hearth historically served as a central place for domestic cooking and heating. en.wikipedia.org
    • The hearth's central domestic role underlies its figurative association with the household. en.wikipedia.org
    • Alfred Tennyson wrote In Memoriam, first published in 1850; the first-edition title page bears that year. en.wikisource.org
    • In Memoriam depicts grieving children sitting by the hearth, using the exact words quoted. en.wikisource.org
  2. 2
    fire stonenouncountable
    A hearthstone, whether standing alone or forming the floor of an enclosed fireplace or oven.

    He knelt on the cold hearth and swept up the ashes.

    The baker slid the loaves straight onto the hot hearth of the brick oven.

    Note

    Here hearth is the stone surface itself, so things happen on it: you kneel on the hearth, sweep it, or bake bread straight on the hot hearth of an oven. Strictly, this floor is the hearth and the recess around it the fireplace, though the looser sense lets hearth name the whole.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

  3. 3
    home lifenounfiguratively
    One's home, or the life a family shares there.

    After years at sea, he longed for the comforts of hearth and home.

    Politicians love to talk about protecting the hearth from the pressures of modern life.

    UsageMost often in the set phrase hearth and home.

    Similarhome, fireside

    Note

    The fire stands for everything around it: the household, the family, the shelter of home. The pair hearth and home carries this sense in everyday writing, and the image can widen to a whole community, as when Christopher Rowe's 2010 translation of Plato's Euthyphro speaks of harming the city "from its very hearth".

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

    • Christopher Rowe translated Plato's Euthyphro. penguin.co.uk
    • Rowe's translation was first published in 2010. everand.com
    • The translation describes harming the city using the exact words 'from its very hearth'. en.wiktionary.org
  4. 4
    furnace bottomnouncountable
    The lowest part of a furnace used for smelting or otherwise working metal.

    Engineers shut down the blast furnace to reline its hearth with fresh firebrick.

    Slag floats on top of the molten iron gathered in the hearth.

Less common meanings

  1. 5
    nounrare
    A container that holds a fire or burning fuel, such as a brazier or firebox.
  2. 6
    noun
    In some forms of Heathenry, a modern pagan faith, a household or local group of followers.

Practice

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Origin

Old English heorþ became Middle English herth or herthe. It goes back through Proto-West Germanic *herþ to Proto-Germanic *herþaz, and possibly to Proto-Indo-European *kerh₃- ("heat, fire"). Its cognates include German Herd, Dutch haard, Swedish härd and West Frisian hurd.