Stove

The word “stove” has two primary meanings in American English. A stove can refer to the cooking appliance—which is also known as a range, oven, or cooking top—or a fuel burning room-heating appliance. Of the first kind of stove, there are gas and electric stoves. The second type of stove includes wood burning, coal burning, natural gas, and pellet burning stoves. For man years, stoves were used for both heating and cooking. Even gas ranges, developed in the beginning of the twentieth century, were used for both cooking and heating. That is why “stove” can refer to both appliances.

One of the first stoves that effectively moved heat through the room, instead of up the chimney, was the Franklin stove, invented by Benjamin Franklin. But this stove also marks the beginning of the separation between the food cooking appliance and the room heating devise, as Franklin’s stove was primarily designed to heat a room. However, despite the gap between the two types of stoves, there are still some stoves designed to pull double-duty as a heater and a cooker. These stoves include the Amish wood stove, which heats any room it’s in, and an outdoor wood stove, which can be used to cook a variety of foods as well as provide warmth.