In the 16th century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if the man failed to keep his family’s pot filled with coffee.
HEARTH
fireplace, hearth, open fireplace
(noun) an open recess in a wall at the base of a chimney where a fire can be built; “the fireplace was so large you could walk inside it”; “he laid a fire in the hearth and lit it”; “the hearth was black with the charcoal of many fires”
hearth, fireside
(noun) home symbolized as a part of the fireplace; “driven from hearth and home”; “fighting in defense of their firesides”
hearth, fireside
(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”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
hearth (plural hearths)
A brick, stone or cement floor to a fireplace or oven.
An open recess in a wall at the base of a chimney where a fire may be built.
Synonym: fireplace
The lowest part of a metallurgical furnace.
A brazier, chafing dish, or firebox.
(figurative) Home or family life.
(paganism) A household or group in some forms of the modern pagan faith Heathenry.
Anagrams
• Hertha
Source: Wiktionary
Hearth, n. Etym: [OE. harthe, herth, herthe, AS. heor; akin to D. haard, heerd, Sw. härd, G. herd; cf. Goth. haúri a coal, Icel. hyrr embers, and L. cremare to burn.]
1. The pavement or floor of brick, stone, or metal in a chimney, on which a fire is made; the floor of a fireplace; also, a corresponding part of a stove. There was a fire on the hearth burning before him. Jer. xxxvi. 22. Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept. There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry. Shak.
2. The house itself, as the abode of comfort to its inmates and of hospitality to strangers; fireside.
3. (Metal. & Manuf.)
Definition: The floor of a furnace, on which the material to be heated lies, or the lowest part of a melting furnace, into which the melted material settles. Hearth ends (Metal.), fragments of lead ore ejected from the furnace by the blast.
– Hearth money, Hearth penny Etym: [AS. heoredhpening], a tax formerly laid in England on hearths, each hearth (in all houses paying the church and poor rates) being taxed at two shillings; -- called also chimney money, etc. He had been importuned by the common people to relieve them from the . . . burden of the hearth money. Macaulay.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
18 April 2025
GROIN
(noun) the crease at the junction of the inner part of the thigh with the trunk together with the adjacent region and often including the external genitals
Coffee Trivia
