furnace
(noun) an enclosed chamber in which heat is produced to heat buildings, destroy refuse, smelt or refine ores, etc.
Source: WordNet® 3.1
furnace (plural furnaces)
(UK) An industrial heating device, e.g. for smelting metal or baking ceramics.
(US, Canada) A device that provides heat for a building; a space heater.
(colloquial) Any area that is excessively hot.
(figurative) A place or time of punishment, affliction, or great trial; severe experience or discipline.
furnace (third-person singular simple present furnaces, present participle furnacing, simple past and past participle furnaced)
To heat in a furnace.
To exhale like a furnace.
• Fraunce
Source: Wiktionary
Fur"nace, n. Etym: [OE. fornais, forneis, OF. fornaise, F. fournaise, from L. fornax; akin to furnus oven, and prob. to E. forceps.]
1. An inclosed place in which heat is produced by the combustion of fuel, as for reducing ores or melting metals, for warming a house, for baking pottery, etc.; as, an iron furnace; a hot-air furnace; a glass furnace; a boiler furnace, etc.
Note: Furnaces are classified as wind or air. furnaces when the fire is urged only by the natural draught; as blast furnaces, when the fire is urged by the injection artificially of a forcible current of air; and as reverberatory furnaces, when the flame, in passing to the chimney, is thrown down by a low arched roof upon the materials operated upon.
2. A place or time of punishment, affiction, or great trial; severe experience or discipline. Deut. iv. 20. Bustamente furnace, a shaft furnace for roasting quicksilver ores.
– Furnace bridge, Same as Bridge wall. See Bridge, n., 5.
– Furnace cadmiam or cadmia, the oxide of zinc which accumulates in the chimneys of furnaces smelting zinciferous ores. Raymond.
– Furnace hoist (Iron Manuf.), a lift for raising ore, coal, etc., to the mouth of a blast furnace.
Fur"nace, n.
1. To throw out, or exhale, as from a furnace; also, to put into a furnace. [Obs. or R.] He furnaces The thick sighe from him. Shak.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
24 January 2025
(noun) a state of agitation or turbulent change or development; “the political ferment produced new leadership”; “social unrest”
Coffee dates back to the 9th century. Goat herders in Ethiopia noticed their goats seem to be “dancing” after eating berries from a particular shrub. They reported it to the local monastery, and a monk made a drink out of it. The monk found out he felt energized and kept him awake at night. That’s how the first coffee drink was born.
