hearthfuls

Noun

hearthful (plural hearthfuls or hearthsful)

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.1947, Transactions of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers, Volume 171
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.1969, Francis Jones, The Princes and principality of Wales, page 175
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.1967, Seumas O'Sullivan, The Dublin Magazine - Volume 21, page 25
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...1954, Ernest Newman, More opera nights, page 420

See all 5 meanings of hearthful