kiln
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
kilnsimple
-
kilnssimple
-
have kilnedperfect
-
has kilnedperfect
-
am kilningprogressive
-
are kilningprogressive
-
is kilningprogressive
-
have been kilningperfect progressive
-
has been kilningperfect progressive
Past
-
kilnedsimple
-
had kilnedperfect
-
was kilningprogressive
-
were kilningprogressive
-
had been kilningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of kiln
before 900; Middle English kiln ( e ), Old English cylen < Latin culīna kitchen
Explanation
A kiln is a special kind of oven for firing things like pottery and bricks. A ceramic artist might use a kiln once a week to fire the bowls he's made from clay. Some kilns look more like furnaces than ovens, and they reach temperatures far beyond regular household ovens. Electricity is used to power many modern kilns, while others use older techniques of burning wood or even coal. Making mugs and bowls is the primary use of kilns, but there are some that dry lumber, tobacco leaves, or hops as well. The Old English word was cyln, from the Latin root culina, "kitchen or cooking stove."
Vocabulary lists containing kiln
A Single Shard
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Visual Arts - Introductory
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Visual Arts - High School
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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:
Wearing wooden clogs, Naresh Paswan uses a long iron bar to push fuel through dozens of fire holes that feed the kiln.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
At a cavernous facility in Morbi, in India's western Gujarat state, a 200-metre-long propane-powered kiln that normally fires clay nonstop is silent.
From Barron's ● Mar. 29, 2026
The handprint found underneath was probably made when someone, perhaps the potter, moved the house out of the workshop to dry before firing in a kiln, according to the researchers.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2025
She fires the white, more vibrant pieces at home in her electric kiln, while the darker ones go through a reduction firing in a gas kiln at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2024
He told him he intended to use the kiln to produce and bend plate glass for his Warner Glass Bending Company.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
But at the brick kilns, it is business as usual, says Paswan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
The final pieces have been fired in the kilns of Denby Pottery, bringing two centuries of production to a close.
From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2026
Producers roast the rounded hearts of agave plants in fire pits or kilns, then crush and ferment the cooked material before distilling it in smaller batches.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 26, 2026
Keeping the kilns hot means plants operate around-the-clock -- and emergency shutdowns can damage machinery.
From Barron's ● Mar. 29, 2026
The kilns in the neighbouring villages were kept busy firing the bricks, but their output was insufficient, and the carts had to go farther afield, returning dusty and brick-filled.
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
Then, last spring, she attracted attention by building a second house for herself, of rosy, freshly kilned brick, abutting the compound of Roshan, the village’s most powerful man.
From New York Times ● Jan. 30, 2016
His "giant" body, "kilned by tropical suns and arctic winds" to a permanent bronze, possesses "a strength superhuman."
From Time Magazine Archive
The handmade brick of the house kilned out of the dirt it stood on.
From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
It gave him a strange, off-kilter appearance, like a Parian bust that had slumped during kilning due to some internal imbalance.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
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.
