Kiln
/kɪln/ noun, verb
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 An oven or furnace or a heated chamber, for the purpose of hardening, burning, calcining or drying anything; for example, firing ceramics, curing or preserving tobacco, or drying grain.
"One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn. Fifty such kilns would devour six thousand metric tons of trees and brush annually."
- 2 a furnace for firing or burning or drying such things as porcelain or bricks wordnet
Verb
- 1 To bake in a kiln; to fire.
"When making pottery we need to allow the bisque to dry before we kiln it."
Example
More examples"I used to make ash trays in a kiln at school."
Etymology
From Middle English kilne, from Old English cyln, cylen, cylin (“large oven, kiln”), from Latin culīna (“kitchen, kitchen stove”). Middle English -ln(e) usually becomes modern -ll as in mill. The pronunciation /kɪln/ may be based on dialects in which this simplification did not take place, but it must have been at least reinforced by spelling pronunciation.