# oven

Pronunciation: say "UH-vuhn" /ˈʌ.vn̩/

## Noun

1. An enclosed chamber that holds heat, used for baking, roasting, or warming food.
   - Simple: A closed box that gets hot inside, used to bake or heat food.
   - _He preheated the oven before sliding in the tray of bread._
   - _Commercial bakeries rely on large ovens that hold steady temperatures._
2. A place that feels extremely and uncomfortably hot. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Any place that feels very hot, like a small room on a summer day.
   - _The crowded subway car was an oven by the time we reached downtown._
   - _Without air conditioning, the office turns into an oven every August._

## Verb

3. To cook food by placing it in an oven and heating it through. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: To cook food by heating it inside an oven.
   - _He ovened the vegetables with a drizzle of olive oil._
   - _Many cooks oven the bread rather than steaming it._

## Origin

From Middle English "oven," from Old English "ofn," going back through Proto-Germanic "*uhnaz" (with relatives like Dutch "oven" and German "Ofen"), and probably from a Proto-Indo-European root "*aukʷ-" meaning "cooking pot."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/oven (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).