Definition of "furnace"

furnace

/ˈfɝnɪs/

noun
plural furnaces
1. An industrial heating device, such as for smelting metal or firing ceramics.
2. (US, Canada) A device that provides heat for a building.
3. (colloquial, figurative) Any area that is excessively hot.
4. (figurative) A place or time of punishment, affliction, or great trial; severe experience or discipline.
  Quotations
  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., chapter 4, in [The Pentateuch] (Tyndale Bible), Malborow [Marburg], Hesse: […] Hans Luft [actually Antwerp: Johan Hoochstraten], Deuteronomye iiij:, 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
verb
third-person singular simple present furnaces, present participle furnacing, simple past and past participle furnaced
1. To heat in a furnace.
2. To exhale like a furnace.