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.

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microwave oven British  

noun

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

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• microwave ovens
  plural

Etymology

Origin of microwave oven

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

"A stellarator is a thing that is objectively very difficult to design, objectively very difficult to build. But if you do it, it is a dumb machine... just like a microwave oven," says Sciortino.

From BBC • Apr. 20, 2026

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

"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

Next to that is the coat room, which contains a barely functioning microwave oven and a refrigerator that won’t stay closed.

From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover

Related Words

• kiln
• microwave
• stove