microwave oven

American  

noun

microwave ovens plural

1. an electrically operated oven using high-frequency electromagnetic waves that penetrate food, causing its molecules to vibrate and generating heat within the food to cook it in a very short time.

---

microwave oven British  

noun

1. Often shortened to: micro.   microwave.  an oven in which food is cooked by microwaves

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• microwave ovens
  plural

Etymology

Origin of microwave oven

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

And middlemen who deal in goods from Asian factories aren’t always willing to disclose what it really costs to make a sofa or microwave oven.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 28, 2026

Yes, just consider the seismic impact of the microwave oven.

From Salon • Aug. 29, 2024

About the size of a microwave oven, Hala Point is “commercially relevant” and “rapid progress” is being made on the software side, he says.

From BBC • Jun. 17, 2024

"These are electromagnetic rays in the range of around one hundred to several thousand gigahertz, comparable to the radiation of a cell phone or a microwave oven -- but with a significantly higher frequency."

From Science Daily • Mar. 18, 2024

“You know I don’t like recipes,” she told her father, while her dinner went around and around and the little red numbers on the microwave oven counted down to zero.

From "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman

Related Words

• kiln
• microwave
• stove