stove
1 Americannoun
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stoves
plural
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a portable or fixed apparatus that furnishes heat for warmth, cooking, etc., commonly using coal, oil, gas, wood, or electricity as a source of power.
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a heated chamber or box for some special purpose, as a drying room or a kiln for firing pottery.
verb (used with object)
verb
noun
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another word for cooker
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any heating apparatus, such as a kiln
verb
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to process (ceramics, metalwork, etc) by heating in a stove
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to stew (meat, vegetables, etc)
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of stove
1425–75; (noun) late Middle English: sweat bath, heated room, probably < Middle Dutch, Middle Low German, cognate with Old English stofa, stofu heated room for bathing, Old High German stuba ( German Stube room; cf. bierstube), Old Norse stofa; early Germanic borrowing < Vulgar Latin *extupa, *extūpa (> French étuve sweat room of a bath; cf. stew 1), noun derivative of *extūpāre, *extūfāre to fill with vapor, equivalent to Latin ex- ex- 1 + Vulgar Latin *-tūfāre < Greek tȳ́phein to raise smoke, smoke, akin to tŷphos fever ( see typhus); alternatively explained as a native Germanic base, borrowed into Romance ( cf. izba); (v.) late Middle English stoven to subject to hot-air bath, derivative of the noun
Explanation
A stove is a machine that heats or cooks. If you want really delicious popcorn, don't use the microwave — cook it the old-fashioned way, in a pot of hot oil on the stove. Stoves typically use gas or electricity. If you have a wood-burning stove in your house, you know it's an apparatus that burns split logs to create enough heat to warm up a room — or several rooms. In the 15th century, stove meant either "heated room" or "bathroom." Experts aren't sure about the word's origin, although some guess a connection to Vulgar Latin's extufare, "take a steam bath."
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:
He and his roommates would use up to six stove burners at a time to prepare meals together, he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 9, 2026
On 17 July, part of the Rustic Stomp festival near Wareham, Dorset, was destroyed by a fire that started when a camping stove set fire to a tent.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
In the early 1970s, Stephen Hawking and other researchers discovered surprising connections between the laws of thermodynamics, which describe familiar processes such as heating water on a stove, and the behavior of black holes.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 13, 2026
Cooking for hours before a burning gas stove on extremely hot days has worsened an existing heart ailment, Agarwal says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
Mama was always cooking up nourishing broths and porridges for forgotten old men and pale young mothers—on days, that is, when she herself was strong enough to stand at the stove.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
They include steel, aluminum, clothing, smartphones and other electronics, fish, dishwashers, washing machines, and stoves.
From Slate ● Aug. 25, 2026
They reside primarily under the care of head prop master Andrew Crawford, who is currently making sure the small butane tanks — not unlike those used in camping stoves — have enough fuel.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
Camp Bestival's announcement means purpose-built barbecues and camping stoves can only be used in the designated cooking areas within the campsites.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
It's a mammoth task: The vast majority of the city's 20,500 licensed food carts -- selling pretzels, peanuts and ice cream -- rely on generators to power stoves, freezers and ventilators.
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 2026
The children’s eyes widened when they heard the cabin had two lamps, two stoves, and grass growing in a yard with a fence and a gate.
From "Sounder" by William H. Armstrong
No one ever ovened a cake or stoved an egg, but Americans are microwaving with impunity.
From Time Magazine Archive
Of six boats not one was saved, all being stoved, and washed overboard with the booms, &c.
From Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 by William O. S. Gilly
It is possible to enter only in calm weather, or the boat would be stoved in against the rocky archway.
From From Pole to Pole A Book for Young People by Sven Anders Hedin
I've made her a present, and it's not infectious, because Miss Birks has had it stoved.
From The School by the Sea by Angela Brazil
If they had not, being so short-handed for the size of the boat, they would have been stoved; as it was they were nearly wrecked by a balk of timber from the explosion.
From The Beach of Dreams by H. De Vere (Henry De Vere) Stacpoole
Black hold, the detonations fierce, floor puddled with wet sick; heaving; victory blotched by fog and rain, the wind meddling, ships luffing, stoving up as if careened; and I below.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
In this year, however, the process of stoving was introduced.
From Ancient and Modern Ships. Part 1. Wooden Sailing Ships by George C. V. Holmes
The gradations of quality may be partly due to the action of heat, i.e. stoving at a higher or lower temperature.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 6 "Celtes, Konrad" to "Ceramics" by Various
If it is used to protect tin-plate printing, when the plates after stoving have been subsequently rolled so as to distort the letters, the varnish has in no way suffered, and its surface remains unbroken.
From Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and Galvanizing by William N. Brown
After a second baking or perhaps stoving had taken place, the designs were further enriched by the application of opaque purple and white pigments, which follow certain conventional principles in their respective use.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 6 "Celtes, Konrad" to "Ceramics" by Various
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.
