kiln

Etymology

From Middle English kilne, from Old English cylene or cyline (“large oven”), from Latin culīna (“kitchen, kitchen stove”). The pronunciation with /n/ is probably a spelling pronunciation, but may have been supported by dialects where /ln/ was not simplified to /l/.

noun

1. 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.
   One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn. Fifty such kilns would devour six thousand metric tons of trees and brush annually. 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion

verb

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