furnace
Americannoun
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furnaces
plural
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a structure or apparatus in which heat may be generated, as for heating houses, smelting ores, or producing steam.
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a place characterized by intense heat.
The volcano was a seething furnace.
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Astronomy. Furnace, the constellation Fornax.
verb (used with object)
noun
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an enclosed chamber in which heat is produced to generate steam, destroy refuse, smelt or refine ores, etc
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a very hot or stifling place
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of furnace
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English furneis, furnais, from Old French fornais, fournais, from Latin fornāc- (stem of fornāx “kiln, oven”), akin to formus “warm”
Explanation
A furnace is an appliance that heats houses and buildings by burning fuel or circulating hot water. Your furnace might rumble in the basement, sending heat up through your house's radiators. Most houses in cold climates have a furnace, to warm their rooms during the chilly months of the year. Furnaces also have industrial uses, like burning trash or extracting ore from metal. If someone says, "It's as hot as a furnace in this classroom!" they mean that it's extremely hot. Furnace comes from the Old French fornaise, "oven," with the Latin root word fornacem, "oven or kiln."
Vocabulary lists containing furnace
Mockingbird
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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:
It’s one of the city’s most traditional dishes: meat slowly cooked for hours in a clay urn with preserved lemon, garlic and spices, traditionally using the heat from a hammam furnace.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
Neither one will put a cubic foot of gas in a New England furnace before the snow melts.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 28, 2026
Seiler placed them in a semi-sealed steel container with very little oxygen and heated them in a high-temperature furnace in his home laboratory.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026
In Pressure, Stagg is thrown into a high-stakes furnace of egos.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
Night.—I am writing this in the light from the furnace door of the steam launch: Lord Godalming is firing up.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
In a US city once known for its steel industry, workers enjoy family outings beside retired, rust-streaked blast furnaces.
From Barron's ● Oct. 19, 2026
The company expects to build plants at the site to process the ore for use in electric arc furnaces with scrap steel to make new steel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
The strategy confirmed electric arc furnaces as the future of British steelmaking, replacing traditional blast furnaces, which resulted in job losses at steelworks including Port Talbot.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
At 19, Pierpaolo Seguso created his first glasswork in the furnaces of his family’s glassblowing factory: an elaborate vase he named “Isola.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
For one thing, the furnaces were made differently and the flames that flared through the cracks of the fire chambers were too intense and too blue.
From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
There he lies and sleeps From year to year—in soft Australian nights, And through the furnaced noons, and in the times Of wind and wet!
From The Poems of Henry Kendall With Biographical Note by Bertram Stevens by Henry Kendall
Bake yourselves, kiln-dry yourselves, if you choose, in your furnaced houses at home, but, if you value your health, "reform that altogether" in Italy.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860 by Various
Across a tract of furnaced flints there came a wind of water, From yellow banks with tender hints of Tethys' white-armed daughter.
From The Poems of Henry Kendall With Biographical Note by Bertram Stevens by Henry Kendall
And the winds blew with excessive heat, as if warmed by the breath of sighs furnaced forth by travellers grieved at being separated from their wives.
From Tales of the Sun or Folklore of Southern India by Mrs. Howard Kingscote
Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced In the blast of a life that has struggled in earnest.
From Home Life of Great Authors by Hattie Tyng Griswold
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
