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:
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
Wienerberger is building what it describes as "the world's first fully electric tunnel kiln"
From BBC ● Jul. 5, 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 house is wrapped in clinker brick, a term for when clay bricks are set too close to the flames when being fired in a kiln, giving them distorted shapes and colors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2025
The potters took turns using the kiln and keeping up the supply of fuel.
From "A Single Shard" by Linda Sue Park
But at the brick kilns, it is business as usual, says Paswan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
We also have the Iznik kilns in Turkey, which are still operating today, and influences into Southeast Asia, and so on.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 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
None of the kilns had been fired up yet, and most of the forge fires were still banked and sullen.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
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.
