Definitions
01cooking appliance
A2 · Elementary Countable noun Cooking
n. a piece of kitchen equipment with a door that you use for baking or roasting food.
n. an enclosed compartment for cooking or heating food, typically powered by gas or electricity.
“She put the tray of cookies into the oven and set the timer for ten minutes.”
“The chef preheated the industrial oven to two hundred degrees before searing the roast to ensure an even distribution of heat during the baking process.”
02a very hot place
B2 · Upper Intermediate Countable noun Informal · Humorous
n. a room or building that is uncomfortably hot.
n. a figurative extension describing an environment with excessively high ambient temperatures.
“It is like an oven in this office because the air conditioning is broken.”
“Stepping out of the air-conditioned terminal into the midday desert heat was like walking directly into an oven.”
03to cook in an oven
C2 · Proficiency Cooking Informal
v. to cook something inside an oven.
v. to subject food to the heat of an oven; used as a transitive verb taking a direct object.
“You can oven the vegetables for twenty minutes until they are soft.”
“While most prefer to grill the peppers, some home cooks choose to oven them to achieve a more uniform texture throughout the dish.”
Etymology
From Middle English oven, from Old English ofn (“oven”), from Proto-West Germanic ofn (“oven”), from Proto-Germanic uhnaz, uhwnaz (“oven”). Cognate with West Frisian ûne (“oven”), Dutch oven (“oven”), Low German Aven (“oven”), German Ofen (“oven”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål ovn (“oven”), Faroese ovnur (“oven”), Icelandic ofn (“oven”), Norwegian Nynorsk omn (“oven”), Swedish ugn (“oven”), Finnish uuni (“oven”), Gothic 𐌰𐌿𐌷𐌽𐍃 (auhns, “oven”)), probably from a Proto-Indo-European aukʷ- (“cooking pot”), Hukʷ-, ukʷnos (compare Sanskrit उखा (ukhā, “boiler, cauldron”), Albanian anë (“vessel, cooker”), Latin aulla, olla (“pot, jar”), Ancient Greek ἰπνός (ipnós, “oven, furnace”)). The modern pronunciation shows an sound change in which Middle English /ɔv/ is changed to /uv/; compare the phonetic development of Coventry and shovel.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Exam level
- CambridgeCambridgeCambridge English QualificationsThe exam suite from Cambridge University Press & Assessment, from A1 Movers up to C2 Proficiency. The benchmark names double as CEFR labels.A2 KeyIELTSIELTSInternational English Language Testing SystemThe 0–9 band test co-owned by the British Council, IDP, and Cambridge. Used for university entry, work, and migration.3.0–4.0TOEFL iBTTOEFL iBTTest of English as a Foreign Language, Internet-Based TestETS's academic English test, the standard route for US university admissions. Scored 0–120, with a 1–6 scale since 2026.1–6 scale: 2.0–2.524–43TOEICTOEICTest of English for International CommunicationETS's workplace English test, big in Japan and Korea. Listening & Reading scores 10–990 and tops out at C1.225–549
- Frequency
- Common
- Level
- A2 · ElementaryOxford
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「カタカナ語」 data: JMdict (EDRDG), CC BY-SA 4.0
‘외래어’ data: 한국어기초사전 (국립국어원), CC BY-SA 2.0 KR