hearth

Meaning

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.
• 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.

Origin

• From Middle English herth, herthe, from Old English heorþ, from Proto-West Germanic *herþ, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *kerh₃- ("heat; fire"). Cognate with West Frisian hurd, Dutch haard, German Herd, Swedish härd.