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sauna

UK/ˈsɔː.nə/US/ˈsɔː.nə/
nounC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,268 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: saunas

A sauna is a hot wooden room you sit in to sweat. Benches, a stove, and stones you throw water on for steam.

It is Finnish in origin and Finland has more of them than cars. The traditional sequence is heat, then cold water or snow, then heat again. The word is one of very few Finnish words in general English. Gyms and hotels have them everywhere now. Note that a sauna is dry heat with bursts of steam, while a steam room is wet heat throughout.

Bleiglass~enwiki · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of sauna

  1. 1nounsaunaA small heated room used for sweating and relaxation.C1

    “There is a sauna next to the pool.”

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *(s)teg- (pole)

  2. Finnish

    sauna

  3. English, today

    sauna

Finnish sauna. Possibly a a doublet of stack.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Hotel & Staying Away

First appears in chapter 17 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

sauna in the wild

  • A sauna is a room or building designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions or an establishment with one or more of these facilities.

    Sauna

  • The Finnish sauna is a substantial part of Finnish and Northern European culture.

    Finnish sauna

  • The word sauna itself is of Finnish origin.

    Finnish sauna

  • Most have a steam room (or wet sauna), dry sauna, showers, lockers, and small private rooms.

    Gay bathhouse

  • The sauna was closed in 2011 after a management dispute.

    OCCII

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.