kiln
Americannoun
-
kilns
plural
verb (used with object)
-
kilns,
present (3rd person singular)
-
kilned,
past participle, past
-
kilning
present participle
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:
Herman enjoys the capriciousness of the kiln, never knowing quite what will emerge from it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
This high-temperature firing process works somewhat like baking clay in a kiln, causing the zirconia particles to fuse together and form a dense, hardened material.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 23, 2026
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 Wienerberger's factory in Broomfleet, East Yorkshire, construction is under way on what the company describes as "the world's first fully electric tunnel kiln" for clay roof tiles.
From BBC ● Jul. 5, 2026
The inner box would serve as an elongated kiln.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
The Systemiq research estimates that roughly a third of Himalayan glacier melt is driven by black carbon, much of it originating from brick kilns in the plains.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 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
Her sketches, which use styles employed in 18th-century architectural drawings, imagine converting vacant office space in the Financial District into fantastical giant kilns.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 22, 2026
Officials have overhauled the management of brick kilns, a major source of black carbon emissions, and taken other measures such as fining drivers of high-emission vehicles and incentivising farmers to stop agricultural burning.
From Barron's ● Jan. 21, 2026
It lacked glazes, was made by hand rather than on potters’ wheels, was baked in open fires rather than in kilns, and was fired at relatively low temperatures.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
