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Added 9 October 2026

kiln

/kɪln/ noun

In Latin: fornāx Wiktionary

noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about kiln at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

An oven or furnace or a heated chamber, for the purpose of hardening, burning, calcining or drying anything; for example, firing ceramics, curing or preserving tobacco, or drying grain.

verb

To bake in a kiln; to fire.
When making pottery we need to allow the bisque to dry before we kiln it.

Origin

From Middle English kilne, from Old English cyln, cylen, cylin (“large oven, kiln”), from Latin culīna (“kitchen, kitchen stove”). Middle English -ln(e) usually becomes modern -ll as in mill. The pronunciation /kɪln/ may be based on dialects in which this simplification did not take place, but it must have been at least reinforced by spelling pronunciation.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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