Forms: 6–7 blomarie, 7–8 blomary, 7– bloomery, -ary. [f. BLOOM sb.2 + -ERY, -ARY.] The first forge in an iron-works through which the metal passes after having been melted from the ore, and in which it is made into blooms.
1584–5. Act 27 Eliz., xix. Any maner of Yron Milles, Furnaces, Hammer, Finarie, Forge or Blomarie.
1672. Petty, Pol. Anat., 374. There are in Ireland … above twenty forges and bloomeries.
1693. Lister, in Phil. Trans., XVII. 866. Those Bars which are wrought out of a Loop, taken up out of the Finnery Harth, or second Forge, are much better Iron than those which are made in the Bloomary or first Harth.
1762. Eliot, ibid., LIII. 56. It is wrought or smelted in a common bloomary.
1851. Turner, Dom. Archit., II. Introd. 30. The bloomeries of Furness … were in full operation in the thirteenth century.
1866. Jevons, Coal Quest. (ed. 2), 217. When the charcoal bloomary and forge gave place to the coke blast-furnace.
