furnace

From Middle English forneys, from Old French fornais (French fournaise), from Latin fornāx.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɝnɪs/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɜːnɪs/

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)nɪs

furnace (plural furnaces)

1. An industrial heating device, such as for smelting metal or firing ceramics.

   Plans for the next phase include furnaces capable of inert atmospheres and partial vacuums.

2. (US, Canada) A device that provides heat for a building.

   Coordinate terms: heater, space heater

   HVAC services include furnace maintenance.

3. (colloquial, figurative) Any area that is excessively hot.

   The busy kitchen became a sweltering furnace.

4. (figurative) A place or time of punishment, affliction, or great trial; severe experience or discipline.

   forged in the furnace of fierce competition

   • 1530 January 27 (Gregorian calendar), W[illiam] T[yndale], transl., [The Pentateuch] (Tyndale Bible), Malborow [Marburg], Hesse: […] Hans Luft [actually Antwerp: Johan Hoochstraten], →OCLC, Deuteronomye iiij:[20], folio IX, recto:

     For the Lorde toke you and broughte you out of the yernen fornace of Egipte, to be vnto him a people of enheritaunce, as it is come to paſſe this daye.

   • 1866, Herman Melville, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War‎, Supplement:

     For that heroic band—those children of the furnace who, in regions like Texas and Tennessee, maintained their fidelity through terrible trials—we of the North felt for them, and profoundly we honor them.

furnace (third-person singular simple present furnaces, present participle furnacing, simple past and past participle furnaced)

1. To heat in a furnace.
2. To exhale like a furnace.

• Fraunce