Hearthful
adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The amount a fireplace can hold.
"All furnaces were built with two sumps, wells or forehearths in which the molten aluminum accumulated, one hearthful or about two metric tons at a time."
- 2 A quantity (of something) contained within a fireplace.
"Another bard, Rhys Goch Eryri, between the years 1385 and 1448, describes the dragon's colour as similar to a hearthful of fire in a smithy, a significant comparison for such a fire is not composed of lambent flames, but of a golden-red glow."
- 3 A quantity (of something) sitting on a hearth outside a fireplace.
"famished after a baconless dinner and a snack of cold weak tea and heavy bread, miserably shod, and with nothing to look forward to in the evening but a hearthful of wet clothes steaming before an inadequate wood fire, source of light as well as heat."
- 4 A homeful; enough to fill a cosy domestic situation.
"Again he begins to weave his spell around Antonia, whispering in her ear that it was foolish of her to have given father and lover the pledge she has; so huge a sacrifice is not to be expected of one with her talent, her beauty, her charm; what can domestic felicity, even with a hearthful of brats thrown in, weigh in the scales against the applause of the adoring multitude?"
- 1 Characterized by warmth, comfort, and a sense of belonging; cosy.
"Thus for some people in settings such as squats and the street, lower on the physical continuum than the others, their experiences may be hearthful: the psychological, social and symbolical constituents of home."
Example
More examples"All furnaces were built with two sumps, wells or forehearths in which the molten aluminum accumulated, one hearthful or about two metric tons at a time."
Etymology
From hearth + -ful.
More for "hearthful"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.