Etymologically
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furnace

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈfɜːnɪs/[1]
  • US: /ˈfɝnɪs/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English furneis, also fornais and furnas,[2][3][4][5][6] borrowed from Old French fornais, also fornaise,[7][8][2][9][10] now fournaise,[7][10][9] from Latin fornāx (“oven, kiln”),[7][8][11][10] a derivative of fornus or furnus (“oven”).[7][12][9][13] Hoad adds a form Vulgar Latin *fornātia for the feminine French form.[9] The Anglo-Norman word, recorded from the early 12th century, meant a furnace or oven, including ovens for pottery, bread and glass.[14] The Latin is related to formus (“warm”),[8][2][13][12] and Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary trace it to Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰer- (“to heat, warm”),[8][11] the root of warm;[12] Klein compares Ancient Greek θερμός (thermós, “warm”) and Old English wearm.[6] Italian fornace and Spanish hornaza come from the same Latin source.[7][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

An enclosed structure for subjecting minerals or metals to intense heat: before 1225, in the life of Saint Juliana.[7] Weekley notes that the first record refers to the third chapter of the Book of Daniel.[15] Barnhart dates the word probably to about 1200.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Old French the word could already mean, figuratively, the flame of love,[8] and in English it was used figuratively from 1340 for a severe trial or a place of great heat.[7] From about 1290 it also meant a boiler or cauldron, a sense that survived only in dialect,[7] where the EDD records it from Northumberland to Devon for a large brewing boiler set in brickwork;[16] in the mining districts of Northumberland and Durham a furnace was a large fire for ventilating a pit.[16] Between about 1400 and 1616 it could be an oven giving moderate heat, as for hatching eggs.[7] From 1660 it was used of the fire of a volcano;[7] from 1691 it meant a closed fireplace for heating a building through hot-air or hot-water pipes, the usual sense in American English today.[7][5] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as an enclosed fireplace.[17] A verb furnace, to breathe out as from a furnace, appears in Chapman in 1598, and Shakespeare uses it;[7][5] the technical verb, to heat in a furnace, dates from 1612.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 1200 – probable first date in Barnhart.[2][3]
  • c. 1225 – an enclosed structure for intense heat.[7]
  • c. 1290 – a boiler or cauldron (now dialectal).[7]
  • 1340 – figurative, a severe trial; a very hot place.[7]
  • c. 1400 – an oven for moderate heat (obsolete by 1616).[7]
  • 1598 – verb, to exhale like a furnace.[7]
  • 1612 – verb, to heat in a furnace.[7]
  • 1660 – the fire of a volcano.[7]
  • 1691 – a closed fireplace for heating a building.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An enclosed structure in which great heat is produced, for smelting or refining ores, melting metals, firing pottery or burning waste.[18][5][7]
  2. An apparatus that heats a building, usually by circulating hot air or water: The furnace in the basement broke down in January.[5][7]
  3. A very hot or stifling place.[18][7]
  4. A severe trial or ordeal.[7][5]

Verb

  1. To heat something in a furnace.[5][7]

Word family

  • furnacelike
  • blast furnace
  • reverberatory furnace

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  12. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  13. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  15. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  16. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins