Hearthstone

Alternative forms

 * hearth-stone

Noun

 * 1) A flat stone used to form a hearth.
 * 2) By extension: The fireside, home life.
 * 3) *1846, Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Good-Bye", line 15
 * I am going to my own hearth-stone, / Bosomed in yon green hills alone,
 * 1) *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
 * 1) *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
 * 1) A soft kind of stone used to whiten door-steps, scour floors, etc.
 * 2) *1861, Henry Mayhew, London labour and the London Poor, vol. 1, page 29
 * Lastly, there is the hearth-stone barrow, piled up with hearth-stone, Bath-brick and lumps of whiting

Verb

 * 1) To scour, as a floor, with hearthstone.
 * 2) *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.