hearthstone

English

Alternative forms

hearth-stone

Etymology

From hearth +‎ stone.

Pronunciation

(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑɹθstoʊn/
(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑːθstəʊn/
Hyphenation: hearth‧stone

Noun

hearthstone (plural hearthstones)

A flat stone used to form a hearth.
- 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter I, in Wuthering Heights, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], OCLC 156123328:
  I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my landlord advanced […].
(by extension) The fireside, home life.
- 1846, Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Good-Bye", line 15
  I am going to my own hearth-stone, / Bosomed in yon green hills alone,
- 1861, Abraham Lincoln, First inaugural address
  The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land
- 1876, Richard J. Hinton, English Radical Leaders, page 55:
  The denominational relations of a household will shape the future political positions of the young men growing around the hearth-stone, just as they did those of their fathers
A soft kind of stone used to whiten doorsteps, scour floors, etc.
- 1861, Henry Mayhew, London labour and the London Poor, volume 1, page 29:
  Lastly, there is the hearth-stone barrow, piled up with hearth-stone, Bath-brick and lumps of whiting

Translations

the stones around a fire

Galician: lareira (gl) f
Irish: teallach m
Kilivila: kailagila
Maori: pārua

Verb

hearthstone (third-person singular simple present hearthstones, present participle hearthstoning, simple past and past participle hearthstoned)

(transitive) To scour, as a floor, with hearthstone.
- 1876, Hallberger's Illustrated Magazine, page 202
  We've a woman come in twice a week, to scrub, and red-brick, and hearthstone, and black-lead, and the rest we manage ourselves.

References

hearthstone in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “hearthstone”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, volume II, revised edition, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., OCLC 1078064371.