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Concept
Kiln
Summary
A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay into pottery, tiles and bricks. Various industries use rotary kilns for pyroprocessing (to calcinate ores, such as limestone to lime for cement) and to transform many other materials.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, kiln was derived from the words cyline, cylene, cyln(e) in Old English, in turn derived from Latin culina ("kitchen"). In Middle English, the word is attested as kulne, kyllne, kilne, kiln, kylle, kyll, kil, kill, keele, kiele.
The word "kiln" was originally pronounced "kil" with the "n" silent, as is referenced in Webster's Dictionary of 1828 and in English Words as Spoken and Written for Upper Grades by James A. Bowen 1900: “The digraph ln, n silent, occurs in kiln. A fall down the kiln can kill you.” Bowen was pointing out the humorous fact that “kill” and “kiln” are homophones. Despite its origins, the modern pronunciation of "kiln," where the "n" is pronounced, has become widely used. This is due to a phenomenon known as spelling pronunciation, where the pronunciation of a word is surmised from its spelling and differs from its actual pronunciation. This is common in words with silent letters.
Pit fired pottery was produced for thousands of years before the earliest known kiln, which dates to around 6000 BCE, and was found at the Yarim Tepe site in modern Iraq. Neolithic kilns were able to produce temperatures greater than 900 °C (1652 °F).
Official source
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