Meaning & use
preheat
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Meaning
verbtransitive
To heat an oven, pan, or other cooking equipment to the right temperature before putting food in it.
Grammar: Takes an object: preheat the oven. Often used in the passive: The oven should be preheated.
Patterns
- preheat the oven to a temperature
- preheat the oven for a time
- preheat a pan
Preheat the oven to 180°C before you start baking.
Always preheat the pan so the meat browns properly.
The recipe says to preheat the oven for ten minutes.
Word forms
| third person singular | preheats |
|---|---|
| past tense | preheated |
| past participle | preheated |
| -ing form | preheating |
Common combinations
- preheat the oven to 180°C
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease a cake tin.
- preheat the oven for 10 minutes
- You should preheat the oven for 10 minutes before baking.
- preheated oven
- Place the dish in a preheated oven for 20 minutes.
- preheat the grill
- Preheat the grill to high before toasting the bread.
Synonyms and how they differ
- warm up
- More general and can be used for engines or rooms; preheat is specific to cooking equipment and implies heating before use.
Opposites
Word family
- preheating noun
- The act of heating something, especially an oven, in advance.
Commonly confused: preheat or reheat?
preheat vs reheat
Reheat means to heat food that is already cooked; preheat means to heat the oven before cooking.
Practice
Before you bake the bread, you need to ______ the oven to 200°C.
Choose one answer.
'Preheat' is the standard verb for heating an oven in advance. 'Reheat' means to heat already-cooked food; 'overheat' means to heat too much; 'heat up' is less specific and not the usual term in recipes.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “preheat”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.