Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Microwave
/ˈmaɪkrəweɪv/noun
An oven that heats food using electromagnetic radiation a few centimetres in wavelength, or that radiation itself.
The Greek roots
μικρός
mikrós
small
Literally: “small wave”
Follow a root:μικρός11 words
The story of the word
A Greek prefix bolted onto a plain English noun, with the radiation sense arriving first in the 1930s: small only by comparison with the metre-long radio waves already in use. The cooking application came out of wartime radar work, when Percy Spencer at Raytheon noticed a chocolate bar melting in his pocket beside a running magnetron. The first commercial oven weighed about 340 kg and stood taller than the cook.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1930s
Same family
microscopemicrometermicrobemicronmicrophone
In a sentence
He put the rice in the microwave and forgot about it until the beeping started.