open-hearth

English

Alternative forms

• open hearth

Adjective

open-hearth (not comparable)

1. Describing a reverberatory furnace used to make steel, usually in mass-produced quantities.

   a then-new steel mill with three large open-hearth furnaces

2. Designating the steel so produced.

   Early open-hearth steels, beating crucible steels on price but often unable to match their quality, were nonetheless well suited to many applications where extreme strength was superfluous but low cost was essential.

3. Describing an open hearth in the home, especially in premodern centuries when such hearths were more common.

   the little tricks of open-hearth cooking that she had nearly forgotten after years behind a coal range

Derived terms

• open-hearth furnace
• open-hearth process

See also

• Siemens-Martin steel