DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 Hearth n.
 1. The pavement or floor of brick, stone, or metal in a chimney, on which a fire is made; the floor of a fireplace; also, a corresponding part of a stove.
    There was a fire on the hearth burning before him.   --Jer. xxxvi. 22.
 Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept.
 There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry.   --Shak.
 2. The house itself, as the abode of comfort to its inmates and of hospitality to strangers; fireside.
    Household talk and phrases of the hearth.    --Tennyson.
 3. Metal. & Manuf. The floor of a furnace, on which the material to be heated lies, or the lowest part of a melting furnace, into which the melted material settles; as, an open-hearth smelting furnace.
 Hearth ends Metal., fragments of lead ore ejected from the furnace by the blast.
 Hearth money, Hearth penny [AS. heorðpening], a tax formerly laid in England on hearths, each hearth (in all houses paying the church and poor rates) being taxed at two shillings; -- called also chimney money, etc.
    He had been importuned by the common people to relieve them from the . . . burden of the hearth money.   --Macaulay.
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