hearthstone
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Noun
hearthstone (plural hearthstones)
- A flat stone used to form a hearth.
- 1847, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, I:
- I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my landlord advanced […].
- 1847, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, I:
- (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
- 1846, Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Good-Bye", line 15
- 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
Verb
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- (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.
- 1876, Hallberger's Illustrated Magazine, page 202
References
- “hearthstone”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “hearthstone”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, revised edition, volumes (please specify |volume=II or III), New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.