oven
Americannoun
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ovens
plural
noun
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an enclosed heated compartment or receptacle for baking or roasting food
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a similar device, usually lined with a refractory material, used for drying substances, firing ceramics, heat-treating, etc
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of oven
before 900; Middle English; Old English ofen; cognate with German Ofen, Old Norse ofn
Explanation
An oven is a device for baking food using heat. You probably scramble eggs on your stove but bake cupcakes in your oven. Most ovens are in kitchens, whether in private homes or restaurants. Every once in a while, you'll see an outdoor bread or pizza oven too — these are built of brick, stone, or clay, and can safely get hot enough to bake at very high temperatures. Another kind of oven is one that's used for baking ceramics, which is also called a kiln or sometimes a furnace. The very oldest ovens were built thousands of years ago in Central and Eastern Europe.
Vocabulary lists containing oven
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:
They suggest ideas like using baby gates to block off the kitchen when you are removing something from the oven, or the hall when you are answering the door.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
For cats exploring the kitchen, be mindful of your oven.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
But the purchase of a new oven landed her in hot water.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026
Heat the oven: Heat to 375°F. Use 1 tablespoon butter to grease a baking dish or oven-safe skillet.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026
Naomi turns on the oven light, and I peer inside.
From "Zara’s Rules for Record-Breaking Fun" by Hena Khan
Smart ovens, refrigerators, and doorbells have all gotten the camera treatment, attempting to close the gaps of mystery in our daily lives.
From Slate ● Sep. 14, 2026
Their roller kilns - which transport materials through every production phase inside industrial ovens - are powered by electric motors.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
In Paris in particular this summer, the steep temperatures turned apartments directly under iconic Haussmann-era buildings with zinc-covered roofs into virtual ovens.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
Working in food, my office is quite literally the kitchen: I write at a repurposed steel prep table, with my laptop on top and Dutch ovens stored below, that sits directly beside the stove.
From Salon ● Jul. 21, 2026
Though Babi worked at Silo, Kabul’s gigantic bread factory, where he labored amid the heat and the humming machinery stoking the massive ovens and mill grains all day, he was a university-educated man.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
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.
