Furnace

How to spell furnace

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce furnace

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does furnace mean?

1. nounAn enclosed structure or appliance in which heat is produced, used for warming a building or for melting and processing materials.

Furnace in a sentence

• The old furnace in the basement finally stopped heating the house.

• Workers fed iron ore into the blazing furnace at the steel mill.

Where does furnace come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin fornax, which simply meant an oven, kiln, or furnace, and that noun was related to fornus or furnus, the ordinary word for a baking oven. The same family gives us the verb-like idea of a vaulted, arched structure, since these ovens were built with curved brickwork. English took the word during the 1200s through Old French, where fornax had become fornaise, and over time the spelling settled into the modern 'furnace'. A surprising relative from the very same root is 'fornicate', because the Latin fornix meant an arch or vault, and the cheap brothels of ancient Rome were tucked beneath such arches. For spelling, it helps to remember the ending follows the French 'fornaise', which is why it closes with -ace rather than the -ice you might expect from the way it sounds.

How the word is built

• furn- (from Latin fornax: oven, kiln)
• -ace (noun ending from the French form fornaise)