oven

noun

1. a chamber or compartment, as in a stove, for baking, roasting, heating, drying, etc.

noun

1. an enclosed heated compartment or receptacle for baking or roasting food
2. a similar device, usually lined with a refractory material, used for drying substances, firing ceramics, heat-treating, etc

verb

3. (tr) to cook in an oven

n.Old English ofen “furnace, oven,” from Proto-Germanic *ukhnaz (cf. Old Frisian, Dutch oven, Old High German ovan, German Ofen, Old Norse ofn, Old Swedish oghn, Gothic auhns), from PIE *aukw- “cooking pot” (cf. Sanskrit ukhah “pot, cooking pot,” Latin aulla “pot,” Greek ipnos), originally, perhaps, “something hollowed out.” The oven-bird (1825) so called because of the shape of its nest. In slang, of a woman, to have (something) in the oven “to be pregnant” is attested from 1962.