smithy
Americannoun
-
the workshop of a smith, especially a blacksmith.
-
a blacksmith.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of smithy
1250–1300; Middle English smithi < Old Norse smithja; akin to Old English smiththe. See smith
Explanation
A smithy is the place where blacksmiths do their work, heating and shaping metal, especially to make tools. You can also call the blacksmith a smithy. Smithy is an old-fashioned word for an old-fashioned profession. A smithy's job involves heating metal and hammering it into the shape of things like axe heads or horseshoes. The workplace itself is less likely to be called a smithy these days and is more commonly referred to as a forge. Smithy and smith can both be traced back to a Proto-Indo-European root word that means "to cut."
Vocabulary lists containing smithy
"The Odyssey," Vocabulary from Part 1 of the epic poem
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Running Out of Time
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The Midwife's Apprentice
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Mr Roberts' father, 86-year-old Albert Roberts, was an apprentice at the family smithy in Little Acton, which closed down in the 1980s.
From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2022
You move in the direction of clanging metal to find the smithy, or toward little squeaks and nibbles to find rats to squash in the inn’s basement.
From The Verge ● Aug. 19, 2021
To the usual Burns toolbox of photo pans and archival film, “Hemingway” adds typewriter imagery — keys hammering on pages like irons in a smithy — and animations of manuscript editing.
From New York Times ● Apr. 2, 2021
“Under a spreading chestnut-tree/ The village smithy stands,” “This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks.”
From Washington Post ● Jun. 2, 2020
The armory adjoined the castle smithy, a long high-roofed tunnel of a building with twenty forges built into its walls and long stone water troughs for tempering the steel.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
The plan was equally straightforward: Community-owned farms would feed everyone and fund additional industries, including apiaries, hatcheries, canneries, smithies, brickyards and even a film studio.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2023
Subtext, allusion, nuance, dramatic irony: these were the smithies upon which mistakes were forged.
From The New Yorker ● Feb. 12, 2017
But a large offshore financial centre will typically have 80-120 corporate smithies, the World Bank reckons.
From Economist ● Apr. 4, 2012
Dust comes and settles on piano lids in arts centres, old Bibles in attics, / shelves, rugs, laundries, smithies, abandoned mills .
From The Guardian ● Jul. 8, 2011
The shafts ran down by many slopes and spiral stairs to caverns far under; there Saruman had treasuries, store-houses, armouries, smithies, and great furnaces.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
