Definition of "hearth"

hearth

/hɑːθ/

noun
plural hearths
1. The place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by at least a hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos, fireplace, oven, smoke hood, or chimney.
  Quotations
  For by the hearth the children sit⁠Cold in that atmosphere of Death,⁠And scarce endure to draw the breath,Or like to noiseless phantoms flit: […]
  1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], canto XX, page 33
2. A hearthstone, either as standalone or as the floor of an enclosed fireplace or oven.
  Quotations
  When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped ; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, and her pretty little Alsatian maid beside her, laying a log across the andirons.
  1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter III, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company
3. A fireplace: an open recess in a wall at the base of a chimney where a fire may be built.
4. The lowest part of a metallurgical furnace.
5. A brazier, chafing dish, or firebox.
6. (figurative) Home or family life.
7. (Germanic paganism) A household or group in some forms of the modern pagan faith Heathenry.
  Quotations
  Asatru is practised all over Northern Europe and also in North America. Like Druidry, it is organized into bodies with sub-groups, the hearths.
  1996, Vivianne Crowley, Thorsons principles of paganism, page 50
  Smaller localized groups known as 'hearths' meet regularly, and are comparable, in size and function, with a Wiccan 'Coven' or Druidic 'Grove'.
  2003 December 8, Robert J. Wallis, Shamans/neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies, and Contemporary Pagans‎, page 102
  Neopagan groups take many forms, from Wiccan covens to Druid groves, from Heathen hearths to magical lodges […]
  2004 March 1, Peter Clarke, editor, Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements‎, Routledge, page 768