hearth

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   home symbolized as a part of the fireplace

   Driven from hearth and home.

2. 2
   noun

   an area near a fireplace, usually paved and extending out into a room

   They sat on the hearth and warmed themselves before the fire.

3. 3
   noun

   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.

   For by the hearth the children sit ⁠Cold in that atmosphere of Death, ⁠And scarce endure to draw the breath, Or like to noiseless phantoms flit: […].

4. 4
   noun

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

   Cooking on an open hearth.

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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