furnace

plural furnaces

1. An industrial heating device, such as for smelting metal or firing ceramics.

   Plans for the next phase include furni capable of inert atmospheres and partial vacuums.

2. CanadaUSA device that provides heat for a building.

   HVAC services include furnace maintenance.

3. colloquialfigurativelyAny area that is excessively hot.

   The busy kitchen became a sweltering furnace.

4. figurativelyA place or time of punishment, affliction, or great trial; severe experience or discipline.

   forged in the furnace of fierce competition

   2 more examples

   For the Lorde toke you and broughte you out of the yernen fornace of Egipte, to be vnto him a people of enheritaunce, as it is come to paſſe this daye.

   1530 January 27 (Gregorian calendar), W[illiam] T[yndale], transl., [The Pentateuch] (Tyndale Bible), Malborow [Marburg], Hesse: […] Hans Luft [actually Antwerp: Johan Hoochstraten], →OCLC, Deuteronomye iiij:[20], folio IX, recto

   For that heroic band—those children of the furnace who, in regions like Texas and Tennessee, maintained their fidelity through terrible trials—we of the North felt for them, and profoundly we honor them.

   1866, Herman Melville, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, Supplement

5. historicalmetonymicallyA smithy or whole ironworks.

   The furnace at Durham helped keep Washington's army at arms.

   Synonyms: forge

present singular third person furnaces · participle present furnacing · participle past furnaced · past furnaced

1. To heat in a furnace.
2. To exhale like a furnace.

1. A surname, variant of Furness.