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microwave oven

American  

noun

  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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of microwave oven

First recorded in 1960–65

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.

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

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

Before bed beckons Saturday night, rewind the clock on the microwave, oven, car, or any other device not yet clever enough to make the leap on its own.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 2, 2023

It was like traveling in a tumble dryer and microwave oven combined.

From "Stormbreaker" by Anthony Horowitz

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.