Microwave

How to spell microwave

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce microwave

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does microwave mean?

1. nounA kitchen oven that heats and cooks food using electromagnetic radiation.
2. verbTo cook or heat food in a microwave oven.
3. nounAn electromagnetic wave with a wavelength between roughly one millimetre and one metre, used in radar and communications.

Microwave in a sentence

• noun

  She reheated the leftover curry in the microwave.

• verb

  You can microwave the frozen soup for three minutes.

• noun

  Radar systems detect aircraft by bouncing a microwave off the metal hull.

• noun

  The office kitchen has a kettle, a fridge, and a small microwave.

• verb

  It is quicker to microwave the rice than to boil it.

• noun

  The physics lecture explained how a microwave carries mobile phone signals.

Where does microwave come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This is a modern compound, built from the prefix micro-, which comes from the ancient Greek mikros meaning 'small', and the everyday English word wave, which descends from the Old English roots tied to wagian, 'to move to and fro'. Scientists first used 'microwave' in the 1930s to describe a band of very short electromagnetic waves, shorter than the radio waves already in use, hence the 'small' label. After the Second World War, engineers discovered that these waves could heat food rapidly, and the cooking appliance took its name from the radiation it used. By the 1970s the kitchen 'microwave' had become a household fixture, and the word even turned into a verb for the act of cooking in one. The spelling is mercifully regular: it simply joins two familiar pieces, so the only thing to remember is the single word with no hyphen.

How the word is built

• micro- (from Greek mikros: small)
• wave (English, from Old English wagian: to move to and fro)