1.A house or room artificially warmed or heated; a forcing house, or hothouse; a drying room; formerly, designating an artificially warmed dwelling or room, a parlor, or a bathroom, but now restricted, in this sense, to heated houses or rooms used for horticultural purposes or in the processes of the arts. "When most of the waiters were commanded away to their supper, the parlor or stove being nearly emptied, in came a company of musketeers." "How tedious is it to them that live in stoves and caves half a year together, as in Iceland, Muscovy, or under the pole!"
2.An apparatus, consisting essentially of a receptacle for fuel, made of iron, brick, stone, or tiles, and variously constructed, in which fire is made or kept for warming a room or a house, or for culinary or other purposes.
3.Hence, in modern dwellings: An appliance having a top surface with fittings suitable for heating pots and pans for cooking, frying, or boiling food, most commonly heated by gas or electricity, and often combined with an oven in a single unit; a cooking stove. Such units commonly have two to six heating surfaces, called burners, even if they are heated by electricity rather than a gas flame.