Definition

1. Noun:
   • A heating apparatus: A device that produces heat, often for warming a room or building.
   • A kitchen appliance for cooking: A device, typically powered by gas or electricity, with burners or heating elements on top and often an oven below, used to prepare food.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • We gathered around the wood-burning stove to keep warm. (This refers to the heating apparatus.)
  • She placed the pot of water on the stove to boil. (This refers to the kitchen cooking appliance.)
  • The new apartment has a modern electric stove. (This refers to the kitchen appliance.)

Advanced Usage

• "To be on the stove": Used to indicate that food is currently being cooked.
  • Dinner was already on the stove. (The food was already being cooked.)
• "Stove-top" or "stovetop": Refers specifically to the flat top surface of a stove where pots and pans are placed for cooking. (Note: This is a compound word listed separately as a variant.)
  • Clean the stovetop after you finish cooking.

Variants and Related Words

• Stovepipe (n): A metal pipe that carries smoke from a stove to a chimney.
• Stovetop (n): The top surface of a stove containing the heating elements or burners.
• Woodstove (n): A stove that burns wood for heating.
• Camp stove (n): A portable stove for cooking outdoors.

Synonyms

• Cooker: (British English) A kitchen appliance for cooking food.
• Range: A kitchen appliance with a stove top and an oven.
• Oven: The enclosed, heated compartment of a stove or a separate appliance for baking.
• Furnace: A device for intense heating, typically for a building's climate control, not for cooking.

Phrasal Verbs

(This word does not commonly form phrasal verbs.)

Related Idioms

(There are no common idioms directly centered on the word "stove".)

Note on Word Form

• The word "stove" is also an archaic or dialectal past tense and past participle of the verb "stave" (meaning to break something by forcing it inward or to ward something off). This usage is rare in modern English.
  • He stove in the barrel with a single kick.
• In gardening, "stove" can be a verb meaning to cultivate plants in a greenhouse (from the noun meaning 'a hothouse'). This usage is also specialized and less common.
  • These delicate orchids are stove in the conservatory.

Noun

1. any heating apparatus
2. a kitchen appliance used for cooking food
   • dinner was already on the stove