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hearth Meaning & Definition

/hɛːrθ/

What Does Hearth Mean?

As a noun, hearth means 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. It can also mean A hearthstone, either as standalone or as the floor of an enclosed fireplace or oven.

Word Facts for Hearth

Part of speechnoun
Pronunciation/hɛːrθ/
Synonymsfireplace, open fireplace and fireside
Pluralhearths

Hearth Definition (Noun)

  1. 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.
  2. A hearthstone, either as standalone or as the floor of an enclosed fireplace or oven.

    cooking on an open hearth

  3. A fireplace: an open recess in a wall at the base of a chimney where a fire may be built.
  4. The lowest part of a metallurgical furnace.
  5. A brazier, chafing dish, or firebox.
  6. Home or family life.
  7. A household or group in some forms of the modern pagan faith Heathenry.

Synonyms of Hearth

fireplaceopen fireplacefireside
Hearth synonyms and antonyms →

Hearth in a Sentence

cooking on an open hearth

Word Forms & Grammar

hearth (plural hearths)

Words That Rhyme With Hearth

Origin of Hearth

Origin 1: 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. First attested in the Old English period.

Origin 2: The modern spelling is from an Middle English/Early Modern English /hɛːrθ/, from earlier /heːrθ/, levelled from inflected forms with /rð/ where the vowel would have been lengthened.[1] The reflex of this pronunciation was preserved in obsolete dialectal /ˈhɜɹθ/.

Common Questions About Hearth

What part of speech is hearth?

Hearth is a noun.

What is another word for hearth?

Words with a similar meaning to hearth include fireplace, open fireplace and fireside. See the full list of hearth synonyms and antonyms.

What is the plural of hearth?

The plural of hearth is hearths.

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