kiln
/kɪln/ noun, verb
Forms kilns kilning kilned kill
- noun 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.
- verb (transitive) To bake in a kiln; to fire. “When making pottery we need to allow the bisque to dry before we kiln it.”
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.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A large stove or oven; a furnace of brick or stone, or a heated chamber, for the purpose of hardening, burning, or drying anything; as, a kiln for baking or hardening earthen vessels; a kiln for drying grain, meal, lumber, etc.; a kiln for calcining limestone.
- noun A furnace for burning bricks; a brickkiln.
Etymology [OE.kilne, kulne, AS. cyln, cylen; akin to Icel. kylna; prob. from the same source as coal. See Coal.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “kiln”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details