Forms: 3 furneise, 4–5 f(o)urneys(e, fo(u)rnays(e, fournas, fornayce, fornes, (5 fornas, furnasee), 4–6 forneys(e, f(o)urneis, furnes(s, (5 furnoys, 6 furneyse, fournes), 6–7 fornace, (6 fournace, furnise), 6– furnace. [a. OF. fornais, masc. (= Pr. fornatz, fornaz, It. fornace), also fornaise (mod.F. fournaise, = Sp. hornaza), repr. L. fornācem, fornax, fem., f. forn-us, furn-us, oven.]
1. An apparatus consisting essentially of a chamber to contain combustibles for the purpose of subjecting minerals, metals, etc., to the continuous action of intense heat.
In modern use it chiefly denotes a building (if masonry lined with firebrick, used for metallurgical operations, the baking of pottery, or the like; but it is also applied to smaller apparatus (usually constructed of iron) used in chemistry, assaying, etc.
a. 1225. Juliana, 32. As þu … te þreo children … biwistest unweommet from þe ferliche fur of þe furneise.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, xvi. 4. Þe fournas þat purges metall.
1382. Wyclif, Matt. vi. 30. The heye of the feeld, that to day is, and to morwe is sente in to the fourneyse.
1413. Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton, 1483), III. vii. 55. With fyre pykes they cast them in the forneis.
1535. Coverdale, Prov. xvii. 3. Like as syluer is tried in the fyre and golde in the fornace, euen so doth the Lorde proue the hertes.
1544. Phaer, Regym. Lyfe (1553), I iij b. Baken or dryed as clay is in the fourneis.
1600. Shaks., As You Like It, II. vii. 148.
| The Louer, | |
| Sighing like Furnace, with a wofull ballad | |
| Made to his Mistresse eye-brow. |
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort. (1729), 229. A plain single Furnace (such as Chymists use in their Laboratories for common Operations).
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 272. The liquid fire which we saw came out of the side of the mountain, and was two leagues from the great volcano itself, running like liquid metal out of a furnace.
1837. Whittock, Bk. Trades (1842), 130. The furnaces, retorts, stills, and other apparatus, are too numerous to be described.
1872. Ellacombe, Ch. Bells Devon, i. 11. On the signal being given, the furnaces were tapped, and the metal flowed from them in two channels into a pool prepared to hold it, before being admitted into the bell-mould.
b. transf. The fire of a volcano; the volcano itself.
1660. F. Brooke, trans. Le Blanc’s Trav., 376. One of the most conspicuous furnaces of the Indies, next that of Guatimala; for the hill at the bottom hath five mouths, and at the top one, which is more formidable than the other five, for casting out fire, with miraculous fury.
1796. H. Hunter, trans. St. Pierre’s Studies of Nature (1799), I. 344. Volcanos must have emitted their fiery currents more frequently in the earlier ages, when the Earth was more covered with forests, and when the Ocean, loaded with it’s vegetable spoils, supplied more abundant matter to their furnaces.
1804. C. B. Brown, trans. Volney’s View Soil U. S., 99. The existence of this furnace agrees with all the traces of earthquakes hitherto mentioned; and these two agents, which we here find united, prove at once the existence of subterranean fires.
c. fig., esp. used to express any severe test or trial. Also, a place of excessive heat; a ‘hotbed.’
1340. Ayenb., 131. Þise wordle þet ne is bote … a fornays anhet mid uer of zenne and of zorȝe.
1382. Wyclif, Deut. iv. 20. The Lord took ȝow, and ladde ȝow oute fro the yren forneys of Egipte.
1497. Bp. Alcock, Mons Perfect., C iij. He lyved here in purgatory and in the fornays of temptacyon.
1600. Fairfax, Tasso, XV. l. He … open set Of his broad gaping iawes the fornace wide.
1611. Bible, Isa. xlviii. 10. I haue refined thee, but not with siluer; I haue chosen thee in the fornace of affliction.
1727–46. Thomson, Summer, 950.
| Breath’d hot, | |
| From all the boundless Furnace of the Sky, | |
| And the wide glittering Waste of burning Sand, | |
| A suffocating Wind the Pilgrim smites | |
| With instant Death. |
1844. Kinglake, Eöthen, xxiv. 320. Nablous is the very furnace of Mahometan bigotry.
† 2. Applied to an oven or chamber for producing a moderate continuous heat; in quots. an incubating chamber. Obs.
c. 1400. Maundev. (1839), v. 49. There is a comoun Hows in that Cytee, that is alle ffulle of smale Furneys; and thidre bryngen Wommen of the Toun here Eyren of Hennes, of Gees and of Dokes, for to ben put in to tho Furneyses.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy. Turkie, I. viii. 7 b. They haue in most partes of theyr houses furnaces, made in maner like vnto the hothouses or stoues of Germanie in the whiche with a small heate they do breed and hatch their egges without help of the Henne.
1616. [see FURNER 1].
3. A closed fireplace for heating a building by means of hot-air or hot-water pipes; also, ‘the fireplace of a marine boiler’ (Adm. Smyth).
1691. Evelyn, Diary, 28 Dec. Saw the effect of my greenhouse furnace.
1881. Fawkes, Horticult. Build., 218. Stokeholes, furnaces, and boilers, should always be protected by an enclosed shed from rain and wind.
4. A boiler, cauldron, crucible. Obs. exc. dial. (See quots. 1884 and 1886.)
c. 1290. S. Eng. Leg., I. 295/61. A forneis he let maken of bras: and fullen it ful of led.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 1011. As a fornes ful of flot þat vpon fyr boyles.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 171. Þe heete of þe lyvere makiþ þe stomac to seþe as fier makiþ a furneis to seþe.
1494. Nottingham Rec., III. 30. Unum fornes de plumbo.
1540. Yatton Churchw. Acc. (Som. Rec. Soc.), 154. To sawyng ye quyrbys to ye Furnes of Chyrche howse vjd.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies (1840), III. 486. Seethe all these [herbs] (being well washed) in a furnace of fair water.
1884. Upton on Severn Gloss., Furnace, a large boiler set in brickwork, for brewing, making soup, &c.
1886. W. Somerset Gloss., Galvanized iron Furnace, 27 gals. … 11s. 9d.
5. attrib. and Comb., as furnace air-pipe, -chink, -coke, -feeder, -filler, -fire, -firer, -glow, -heat, -house, -smoke; furnace-burning, -like adjs.; furnace-ward adv. Also furnace-bar = fire-bar (see FIRE B. 5); furnace-bridge (see quot.); furnace cadmia or cadmium (see quot.); furnace-drift, † -earth (see quots.); furnaceman, one who tends a furnace; furnace-pumice Metall., ‘a slag often produced in smelting pisolitic iron ores having the cellular appearance of pumice-stone’ (Cassell); furnace-tube (see quot.).
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort. (1729), 231. The *Furnace Air-pipes, and how they are placed to pass through the Fire and Brick-work, with the Projecture of their Noses, to take fresh Air from without, and carry it into the House.
1888. Lockwood’s Dict. Terms Mech. Eng., *Furnace Bars.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 926/2. *Furnace-Bridge. A barrier of fire-bricks or of iron plates containing water thrown across the furnace at the extreme end of the fire-bars, to prevent the fuel being carried into the flues, and to quicken the draft by contracting the area.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., II. i. 80. All my bodies moysture Scarse serues to quench my *Furnace-burning hart.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., *Furnace cadmium or cadmia. The oxide of zinc which accumulates in the chimneys of furnaces smelting zinciferous ores.
a. 1849. J. C. Mangan, trans. Schiller, The Lay of the Bell, Poems (1859), 35.
| That the flame, with subtie flood, | |
| Through the furnace-chink may fly. |
1889. Daily News, 16 Dec., 2/7. This week *furnace coke has been selling at 22s. 6d. to 23s. per ton at the ovens.
1892. Northumbld. Gloss., *Furnace-drift, a passage leading into an ‘upcast’ pit provided with a furnace for the purpose of ventilating the mine.
1612. Sturtevant, Metallica (1854), 114. *Furnace-earths … where-withall you build up your Furnaces.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, *Furnace-feeder, a stoker or fireman; one who supplies fuel to the furnace.
1892. Labour Commission Gloss., *Furnace Fillers, men who remain at the top of the furnace and empty therein the loaded barrows sent up from the bottom.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett., I. xxix. 41. If this small *furnace-fire hath vertue to convert such a small lump of Dark Dust and Sand into such a precious clear Body as Crystal.
1889. Daily News, 4 Dec., 5/6. A furnace firer … stated that [etc.].
1863–5. J. Thomson, Sunday at Hampstead, vi. The East resumes its *furnace-glow.
1849. E. E. Napier, Excurs. S. Africa, II. xxi. 407. Intolerable glare of a tent, with its alternate furnace heat and chilly dampness.
1882. Ouida, In Maremma, I. 62. A *furnace-house to make the salt that was raked upon the beach.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., II. (1586) 77 b. The Furrow must be made *Furnase like, straight aboue, and broade in the bottome.
1825. Heber, Narrative (1828), III. 33. Such a furnace-like climate.
1883. Gresley, Gloss. Coal Mining., *Furnaceman.
1884. B’ham Daily Post, 23 Feb., 3/5. Wanted two little Mill Furnacemen.
1797. College, 20. Like *furnace-smoke in volumes rolling down.
1888. Lockwood’s Dict. Terms Mech. Eng., *Furnace-tube, the tube within which the fuel is enclosed in an internally fired boiler.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 1087. First floore hit ij feet thicke enclynynge softe The *fourneis ward.
