What is "microwave oven"

Appliance \Ap*pli"ance\, n.

1. The act of applying; application.

2. subservience; compliance. [Obs.]
   --Shak.

3. A thing applied or used as a means to an end; an apparatus or device; as, to use various appliances; a mechanical appliance; a machine with its appliances.

4. Specifically: An apparatus or device, usually powered electrically, used in homes to perform domestic functions. An appliance is often categorized as a major appliance or a minor appliance by its cost. Common major appliances are the refrigerator, washing machine, clothes drier, oven, and dishwasher. Some minor appliances are a toaster, vacuum cleaner or microwave oven.

n. An oven that uses microwave energy to heat food or other items placed within it.

n. kitchen appliance that cooks food by passing an electromagnetic wave through it; heat is produced by the absorption of microwave energy by the water molecules in the food [syn: microwave]

A microwave oven is a kitchen appliance that heats and cooks food by exposing it to microwave radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce thermal energy in a process known as dielectric heating. Microwave ovens heat foods quickly and efficiently because excitation is fairly uniform in the outer of a homogeneous, high water content food item; food is more evenly heated throughout (except in heterogeneous, dense objects) than generally occurs in other cooking techniques.

Percy Spencer is generally credited with inventing the modern microwave oven after World War II from radar technology developed during the war. Named the "Radarange", it was first sold in 1946. Raytheon later licensed its patents for a home-use microwave oven that was first introduced by Tappan in 1955, but these units were still too large and expensive for general home use. The countertop microwave oven was first introduced in 1967 by the Amana Corporation, and their use has spread into commercial and residential kitchens around the world.

Microwave ovens are popular for reheating previously cooked foods and cooking a variety of foods. They are also useful for rapid heating of otherwise slowly prepared cooking items, such as hot butter, fats, and chocolate. Unlike conventional ovens, microwave ovens usually do not directly brown or caramelize food, since they rarely attain the necessary temperatures to produce Maillard reactions. Exceptions occur in rare cases where the oven is used to heat frying-oil and other very oily items (such as bacon), which attain far higher temperatures than that of boiling water. Microwave ovens have a limited role in professional cooking, because the boiling-range temperatures produced in especially hydrous foods impede flavors produced by the higher temperatures of frying, browning, or baking. However, additional heat sources can be added to microwave ovens, or into combination microwave ovens, to produce these other heating effects, and microwave heating may cut the overall time needed to prepare such dishes. Some modern microwave ovens are part of over-the-range units with built-in extractor hoods.