​KILN (O.E. cylene, from the Lat. culina, a kitchen, cooking-stove), a place for burning, baking or drying. Kilns may be divided into two classes—those in which the materials come into actual contact with the flames, and those in which the furnace is beneath or surrounding the oven. Lime-kilns are of the first class, and brick-kilns, pottery-kilns, &c., of the second, which also includes places for merely drying materials, such as hop-kilns, usually called “oasts” or “oast-houses.”