The ultimate source of the word oven is an Indo-European word meaning firepot and pronounced something like ukwnos. This Indo-European word evolved into the Germanic uhwnaz, which developed into the Old English ofn, first recorded in the tenth century and respelt as oven by the fourteenth century. The Indo-European ukwnos also developed along a different path into the Latin word aula, meaning pot; in Spanish, the Latin aula evolved into olla, which originally meant pot but also came to be used as the name of a dish of stewed meat. It was with this stewed meat sense that English adopted olla in the early seventeenth century, although in the mid nineteenth century the word was readopted from American Spanish as the name of an earthenware jar used to keep water cool.
An insulated compartment, typically featuring one or more doors, specifically designed for the purpose of roasting or baking food items by means of heating.