: an enclosed structure in which heat is produced (as for heating a house or for reducing ore)
Examples of furnace in a Sentence
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That way, when your gas furnace eventually breaks, there’s no need to replace it.—Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times, 10 Apr. 2025 Before Ascent was even built, its timber was tested in a furnace at the lab, where temperatures can reach over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.—Rob Marciano, CBS News, 9 Apr. 2025 The new furnaces, which run on climate-friendly hydrogen, natural gas, and electricity instead of coal, would have helped revitalize the aging steel facility.—Kevin Williams, Quartz, 8 Apr. 2025 Replacing a gas furnace usually runs into thousands of dollars.—Rachel Nuwer, New York Times, 7 Apr. 2025 See All Example Sentences for furnace
Word History
Etymology
Middle English fourneyse, fornes, furneis "oven, kiln, furnace," borrowed from Anglo-French furneis, fornays, fornaise (continental Old French forneis —attested once as masculine noun— fornaise, feminine noun), going back to Latin fornāc-, fornāx (also furnāx) "furnace, oven, kiln (for heating baths, smelting metal, firing clay)," from forn-, furn-, base of furnus, fornus "oven for baking" + -āc-, -āx, noun suffix; forn- going back to Indo-European *gwhr̥-no- (whence also Old Irish gorn "piece of burning wood," Old Russian grŭnŭ, gŭrnŭ "cauldron," Russian gorn "furnace, forge," Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian gŕno "coals for heating iron at a smithy," Sanskrit ghṛṇáḥ "heat, ardor"), suffixed derivative of a verbal base *gwher- "become warm" — more at therm
Note:
The variation between -or-, the expected outcome of zero grade, and -ur- in Latin has been explained as reflecting a rural/dialectal change of o to u, borrowing from Umbrian, or the result of a sound change of uncertain conditioning; see most recently Nicholas Zair, "The origins of -urC- for expected -orC- in Latin," Glotta, Band 93 (2017), pp. 255-89.
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