hearth

1. 1.

   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”

   Synonymsfireplaceopen fireplace

   Broaderrecess

   Narrowerfire

   Part ofchimney

   Partsfire ironhearthstonemantelwater back
2. 2.

   home symbolized as a part of the fireplace

   “driven from hearth and home”

   “fighting in defense of their firesides”

   Synonymsfireside

   Broaderdwelling

   Part offireplace

   synecdoche

3. 3.

   an area near a fireplace (usually paved and extending out into a room)

   “they sat on the hearth and warmed themselves before the fire”

   Synonymsfireside

   Broaderarea

Other forms of hearth

plural

hearths·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about hearth

What does hearth mean?

hearth means "an open recess in a wall at the base of a chimney where a fire can be built". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in hearth?

hearth has 1 syllable: hearth. In IPA it is /ˈhɑɹθ/.

What is another word for hearth?

Close synonyms include fireplace, open fireplace, fireside, fireside. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is hearth a common word?

hearth is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.