different between furnace vs furniture

English

Etymology

From Middle English forneys, from Old French fornais (French fournaise), from Latin forn?x.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?f?n?s/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?f??n?s/

Noun

furnace (plural furnaces)

1. (Britain) An industrial heating device, e.g. for smelting metal or baking ceramics.
2. (US, Canada) A device that provides heat for a building; a space heater.
3. (colloquial) Any area that is excessively hot.
4. (figuratively) A place or time of punishment, affliction, or great trial; severe experience or discipline.
   • c. 1530, William Tyndale, Tyndale Bible, Deuteronomy 4:20:

     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.

Derived terms

• furnacey

Translations

Verb

furnace (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.

Anagrams

• Fraunce

English

Etymology

From Middle French fourniture (“a supply, or the act of furnishing”), from fournir (“to furnish”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?f??n?t??/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?f?n?t??/

Noun

furniture (usually uncountable, plural furnitures)

1. (now usually uncountable) Large movable item(s), usually in a room, which enhance(s) the room's characteristics, functionally or decoratively.

   They bought a couple of pieces of furniture.

   • Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of local colour) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust […].
2. The harness, trappings etc. of a horse, hawk, or other animal.
3. Fittings, such as handles, of a door, coffin, or other wooden item.
4. (firearms) The stock and forearm of a weapon.
5. (printing, historical) The pieces of wood or metal put round pages of type to make proper margins and fill the spaces between the pages and the chase.
6. (journalism) Any material on the page other than the text and pictures of stories.

Usage notes

• Before the end of the nineteenth century, the plural furnitures existed in Standard English in both the U.S. and the U.K.; during the twentieth century, however, it ceased to be used by native speakers.
• A single item of furniture, such as a chair or a table, is often called a piece of furniture.
• In many languages "piece of furniture" is one word, and often its plural form is the equivalent of the English "furniture", for example French meuble / meubles.

Hyponyms

• See also Thesaurus:furniture

Meronyms

• drawer
• wardrobe

Derived terms

Related terms

• furnish

Translations

Further reading

• furniture in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• furniture in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.