oasthouse: [18] Although the compound oasthouse is not recorded until the mid 18th century, oast itself, which means ‘kiln’, goes right back to Old English, and beyond, to Indo- European *aidh- ‘burn’. This was also the source of Latin aestās ‘summer’, etymologically the ‘hot season’, from which are descended French été ‘summer’ and English aestivate [17]. Originally oast was simply a general term for ‘kiln’, and the specific application to a ‘hopdrying kiln’ did not begin to emerge until the 16th century. => aestivate