▪ I. hearth1
(hɑːθ)
Forms: 1 heorð, herth, (4 erþe), 4–6 herth(e, 5–7 harth(e, 6– hearth.
[OE. heorð str. masc. = OFris. herth, herd, OS. herth, (MDu. heert, haart(d), MLG. hert, Du. haard, LG. heert, heerd); OHG., MHG. hert, Ger. herd floor, ground, fireplace:—WGer. *herþoz. (In Sc. and north. dial. still rimes with earth.)]
1. a. That part of the floor of a room on which the fire is made, or which is beneath the fire-basket or grate; the paved or tiled floor of a fireplace.
| a 700 Epinal Gloss. 5 Arula, fyrpannae vel herth. c 725 Corpus Gloss. 906 Fornacula, cyline, heorðe. c 1000 Azariah 176 Hweorfað nu æfter heorðe. 1382 Wyclif Jer. xxxvi. 23 He kutte it..and threȝ it in to the fyr, that was vpon the herth. c 1425 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 657/1 Hoc focarium, harthe. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 237/2 Herthe, where fyre ys made, ignearium. 1486 Nottingham Rec. III. 258 Baceford ston for to make þe chymney harth with. 1573–80 Baret Alv. H 328 The Hearth wherein fire is kept, focus. 1596 Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. i. 95 Thay bake it at the harth. 1634 Althorp MS. in Simpkinson Washingtons App. 65 The stone for the harth in the Great Chamber. 1750 Gray Elegy vi, For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn. 1838 Thirlwall Greece II. 98 The sacred fire, which was kept constantly burning on the public hearth of the colony, was taken from the altar of Vesta. 1849 James Woodman ii, A pile of blazing logs on the hearth. |
| fig. 1594 T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. ii. To Rdr. 7 The heart is the harth from whence proceedeth all that inset and natiue heate. 1866 B. Taylor Icarus Poems 247 Hearths of air Whereon the Morning burns her hundred fires. |
b. A portable receptacle for fire, or flat plate on which it may be made.
| 1618 Bolton Florus (1636) 321 Carrying, for as it were his crest, a chafing-dish or little hearth upon his helmet, and the coales thereof kindling with the motion of his body. 1665 Sir T. Roe's Voy. E. Ind. 359 They..bake it upon small round iron hearths, which they carry with them. 1845 E. Acton Mod. Cookery vii. 191 The hot plates, or hearths with which the kitchens of good houses are always furnished. |
c. ‘Applied to the ship's fire-place, coppers, and galley generally’ (Smyth
Sailor's Word-bk. 1867).
2. As typical of the household or home; the home, ‘fireside’. Often in the alliterative phrase
hearth and home.
| c 1000 Laws Edgar ii. c. 2 (Schmid) Be ælcum friᵹan heorðe. c 1000 ælfric Hom. II. 262 He sceolde bebeodan Israhela folce þæt hi namon æt ælcum heorðe anes ᵹeares lamb. 1585 T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. i. xii. 13 b, This towne doth not now containe above 300 harthes. 1607 Shakes. Cor. iv. v. 85 Now this extremity, Hath brought me to thy Harth. 1817 Byron Manfred iii. iv, A grove which..twines its roots with the imperial hearths. 1838 Thirlwall Greece V. 35 To fight for their hearths and altars. 1857 Mayne Reid War Trail (Rtldg.) 141 Puissant defenders of the hearth and home. |
3. Technical.
a. The fireplace of a smith's forge.
b. The floor in a reverberatory furnace on which the ore, or in a puddling furnace on which the iron, is exposed to the flame.
c. The hollow at the bottom of a blast-furnace through which the molten metal descends to the crucible.
d. A portable brazier or chafing-dish used in soldering.
e. In cylinder glass manufacture: A spreading frame.
open-hearth furnace, a form of regenerative furnace of the reverberatory type used in some processes of making steel; hence
open-hearth steel.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. vi. xxix. (Tollem. MS.), Þe eyer þat bloweþ in þe erþe [1535 forge] is hoot and dry; hit heteþ and dryeþ smeþis. 1645 G. Boate in Nat. Hist. Irel. (1726) 76 The [melted] iron itself descendeth to the lowest part of the furnace called the hearth; the which being filled..they unstop the hearth, and open the mouth therof. 1693 Lister in Phil. Trans. XVII. 866 Those Bars which are wrought out of a Loop, taken up out of the Finnery Harth, or second Forge, are much better Iron than those which are made in the Bloomary or first Harth. Ibid. 867 Set in the Smiths Forge or Harth, a Crucible, or Dish of Crucible Metal. 1872 Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 125 The furnaces must be differently constructed..the walls must come down straight to the hearth, or contract gradually. 1875 Ure's Dict. Arts II. 996 The puddling furnace..is divided interiorly into three parts; the fireplace, the hearth, and the flue. 1883 Crane Smithy & Forge 10 The smith's hearth, when of the largest description, is a kind of trough of brick⁓work about six feet square, elevated several inches from the floor of the smithy. 1894 Harper's Mag. Jan. 412 It may be crucible, Bessemer, or open-hearth steel. |
4. attrib. and
Comb., as
a. hearth-broom,
hearth-brush,
hearth-fire,
hearth-holder,
hearth-light,
hearth-place,
hearth-side,
hearth-staff,
hearth-tool;
hearth-baken adj.;
b. hearth-book, a book containing a list of hearths for the purpose of the
hearth-tax;
hearth-bottom, the stone which forms the bed of a blast-furnace;
hearth-cake, a cake baked on the hearth;
hearth-cinder, the slag formed on the refinery-hearth;
hearth-cricket, the common house-cricket;
hearth-ends, particles of unreduced lead ore from a blast-furnace;
hearth-fellow, a fireside companion;
hearth-fly, a kind of artificial fly used in angling;
hearth-plate, a cast-iron plate forming the hearth of a reverberatory furnace;
† hearth-stock,
= head-block 1;
hearth tidy, a pan for containing the ashes that fall from a fireplace;
hearth-warming, a merry-making to handsel a new house; a house-warming;
† hearth-yeld = hearth-penny. Also
hearth-money, -penny, -rug, -stone, -tax.
| c 1000 ælfric Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 153/36 Subcinericeus, uel focarius, *heorðbacen hlaf. |
| 1769 R. Price Observ. Revers. Payments (1792) II. 276 According to the *hearth⁓books of Lady-day 1690. |
| 1880 Encycl. Brit. XIII. 299/2 This is the *hearth bottom, formerly made of one or more large slabs of sandstone. 1951 Good Housek. Home Encycl. (1956) 269/2 Sunk or hearth-bottom grates, in which the fuel rests on a bed of fire clay. |
| 1781 Burney in Boswell Johnson July, He cut some bristles off his *hearth broom. |
| 1752 G. White Petty Cash Acc. in Selborne (1878) II. 317 Cinder⁓sifter and *hearth-brush. |
| 1617 Moryson Itin. iii. 155 They vulgarly eate *harth Cakes of Oates. a 1781 R. Challoner Medit. (1843) I. 379 That hearth-cake of the prophet Elias, with which he was fed. |
| 1789 G. White Selborne xlvii. (1853) II. 286 Cats catch *hearth-crickets and..devour them. |
| 1870 J. Percy Metall. Lead 289 The *hearth-ends..consist of particles of ore, projected from the hearth partly by the action of the blast, but chiefly by decrepitation of the ore, and of particles of fuel and lime. |
| 1895 Morris Beowulf 110 For the fall of their lord, e'en they his *hearth-fellows. |
| 1784 M. Underwood Dis. Childr. (1799) I. 294 The warm ashes of a *hearth-fire. |
| 1787 Best Angling (ed. 2) 106 The *Hearthfly Dubbed with the wool off an aged black ewe, mixed with some grey colt's hair. |
| 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. II. vi. ii, So many householders or *hearthholders do severally fling down their crafts and industrial tools. |
| 1723 Pres. State Russia II. 375 The *Hearth-place is in the middle of the Tent. |
| 1875 Ure's Dict. Arts II. 997 Cast⁓iron *hearth-plates, resting upon cast-iron beams. |
| 1803 M. Charlton Wife & Mistress IV. 170 Let 'em all get to their own *hearth-side. 1863 W. Phillips Speeches xix. 443 Soldiers..at their very hearth-sides. |
| 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. 321/1 The *Hearth-staff..is to open and stir up the Fire, and cast out the Cinders that come from the Iron. 1703 Moxon Mech. Exerc. 10 With your Hearth⁓staff stir up the Fire. |
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 237/2 *Herthe stok or kynlyn..repofocilium. |
| 1920 Ironmonger 18 Dec. 95 Saucepans, *hearth tidies, curbs, plate racks. |
| 1830 W. Carleton Irish Peasantry (1836) II. 198 Among the peasantry no new house is ever put up without a *hearth-warming, and a dance. |
| c 1300 Battle Abbey Custumals (1887) 10 Pro Romescot et *hertȝeld iiij d. |
Hence
ˈhearthing (
nonce-wd.):
cf. furnacing.
| 1612 Sturtevant Metallica (1854) 109 By their new kind of furnacing and hearthing. |
▪ II. † hearth2 Obs. rare.
In 4
Kent.
hyerþe.
[f. OE. h{iacu}er-an to hear + -th1.] = hearing.
| 1340 Ayenb. 91 Þe vif wyttes of þe bodye be zyȝþe be hyerþe be smellinge be zuelȝynge and be takynge. |