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tan·door

(tän-dr)

n. pl. tan·doors or tan·door·i (-drē)

A cylindrical oven made of clay, heated over charcoal or wood, and used in South Asia and Central Asia for baking bread and roasting meat.

[Hindi and Urdu tandūr, from Persian tanūr, tundūr, oven, from Middle Persian tanūr, from Old Iranian tanūra-; akin to Aramaic tannūrā, Akkadian tinūru, and Sumerian duruna, all probably from a substrate source in southwest Asia .]

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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