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
This winter, he plans to use a wood stove he bought eight years ago and had stored away.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
On the hottest days, his mother Madhuri Devi said she repeatedly vomited while cooking over the stove.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
Charlie wasn’t entirely broke up to see Glenn’s sorry state, and he put the stove back together.
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
Tenants “deserve to live in dignity with basic necessities like working stoves and ovens.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 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
She darted around obstacles—broken furniture left for the trash heaps or for scavengers, stoves and refrigerators that were past repair, peddlers sitting on the pavement with their wares spread out around them.
From "The City of Ember" by Jeanne DuPrau
No one ever ovened a cake or stoved an egg, but Americans are microwaving with impunity.
From Time Magazine Archive
Vermilion must be stoved at a very gentle heat.
From Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and Galvanizing by Brown, William N.
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 Brazil, Angela
The pipe rack was originally a wrought-iron frame upon which dirty clay pipes were stoved in a brick oven and restored to their original freshness.
From Chats on Household Curios by Burgess, Fred. W. (Frederick William)
The stoved planks were found to be in a good state of preservation, while many of the others were rotten.
From Ancient and Modern Ships. Part 1. Wooden Sailing Ships by Holmes, George C. V.
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
