Full definition of hearthstone
Noun
- A flat stone used to form a hearth.
- By extension: The fireside, home life.
- 1846, Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Good-Bye", line 15I am going to my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone, - 1861, Abraham Lincoln, ''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 55The 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 door-steps, scour floors, etc.
- 1861, Henry Mayhew, London labour and the London Poor, vol. 1, page 29Lastly, there is the hearth-stone barrow, piled up with hearth-stone, Bath-brick and lumps of whiting
Verb
- (transitive) To scour, as a floor, with hearthstone.
- 1876, Hallberger's Illustrated Magazine, page 202We've a woman come in twice a week, to scrub, and red-brick, and hearthstone, and black-lead, and the rest we manage ourselves.
