stove
1 Americannoun
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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:
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
The “Charlie’s Angels” star proceeded to pose next to the petite kitchen, which comes complete with a stove and sink.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 8, 2026
"Barbecue requires very little investment, and the risk is low. One barbecue stove can support a family, so it's a very good way to alleviate unemployment," Jiang said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 2, 2026
An older retreat attendee who is acting as a mentor stands at the stove, scrambling eggs for the group’s breakfast.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 1, 2026
The stove, a front-loader, stayed in the woodshed through warm weather.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
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
Two of them changed how we use stoves, both industrial and domestic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
Shared electricity connections in such houses cannot support cheaper electric stoves, and safer models are too expensive.
From BBC ● Apr. 7, 2026
With black market gas prices nearly double, some are looking to cook on wood stoves or use less energy-consuming methods.
From Barron's ● Mar. 20, 2026
In a hundred valley houses fires started burning in combination wood and gas stoves, and men, dressed already in irrigation boots, quietly ate breakfast with their wives and children.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
No one ever ovened a cake or stoved an egg, but Americans are microwaving with impunity.
From Time Magazine Archive
For white grounds fine putty powder or whiting must be employed, a final coat being afterwards given, and the work stoved again.
From Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and Galvanizing by Brown, William N.
He walked with a limp, stiff and stoved in his joints as a foundered horse.
From Trail's End by Ogden, George W. (George Washington)
Blondes and gauzes may be whitened in the same manner, but there should be a little gum put in the last liquor before they are stoved.
From The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness A Complete Hand Book for the Use of the Lady in Polite Society by Hartley, Florence
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 Gilly, William O. S.
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
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
The operator should procure his enamels a shade or two lighter than he desires to see in the finished article, allowing the chemical action due to the stoving to tone the colours down.
From Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and Galvanizing by Brown, William N.
In this year, however, the process of stoving was introduced.
From Ancient and Modern Ships. Part 1. Wooden Sailing Ships by Holmes, George C. V.
Not a solitary germ, however, had survived the stoving and whitewashing, and the health record at the Dower House maintained its former standard of excellence.
From The School by the Sea by Brazil, Angela
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.
