smithy

From Middle English smythy, from Old Norse smiðja, from Proto-Germanic *smiþjǭ. Cognate with Old English smiþþe (whence the obsolete modern doublet smithe). See the Proto-Germanic entry for further cognates.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsmɪði/, /ˈsmɪθi/ (the form with /θ/ is chiefly North American)
• Rhymes: -ɪði, -ɪθi

smithy (plural smithies)

1. The location where a smith (particularly a blacksmith) works, a forge.

   Synonyms: forge, smithery

   Traditionally a village smithy was a busy place because the smith's work was so necessary.

   • 1941 June, “Notes and News: The Derelict Glyn Valley Tramway”, in Railway Magazine, page 278:

     The workshop with its smithy is still intact, also the loading stage where the narrow-gauge wagons tipped their contents into those of the G.W.R.

   • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 214, about Hambleden:

     Close to the hump-backed bridge on the lane leading into the Hambleden Valley is a mid-19th-century smithy, its inside walls hung with tools of the blacksmith's trade, though decorative wrought-ironwork is now the main product from its glowing forge.

• Smithy Bridge
• smithy coal

smithy (third-person singular simple present smithies, present participle smithying, simple past and past participle smithied)

1. (uncommon) to forge, especially by hand
   • 1956, C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle:

     "That's funny looking mail, Sire," said Eustace.
     "Aye, lad," said Tirian. "No Narnian dwarf smithied that. […]

   • 1995, John Francis Campbell, The Celtic Dragon Myth, page 59:

     So the old smith went out to his smithy and weighed out iron enough to make a stout staff a stone weight, and he smithied it well while his son looked on. […] So they weighed six stone of iron and smithied a great bent club like a shinny, and when that was made and cooled the smith's son said, "that will do."

• “smithy”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.