hearthstone

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From hearth +‎ stone.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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hearthstone (plural hearthstones)

  1. A flat stone used to form a hearth.
  2. (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
  3. 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

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Verb

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

  1. (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

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