A broiler is a young chicken raised specifically for meat, typically ready to eat when it's only 6-8 weeks old. When you see chicken at the grocery store or order chicken nuggets at a restaurant, you're almost always eating meat from a broiler chicken. These chickens grow much faster than chickens raised for laying eggs, and they're bred to have more breast meat.

The word also refers to the part of your oven that cooks food with intense heat from above. When you broil something, you're placing it close to this top heating element so it cooks quickly on the surface. This intense heat is perfect for making cheese bubble and brown on top of nachos, or for getting a crispy crust on salmon. Unlike baking, which surrounds food with heat, broiling directs intense heat from one direction, almost like an upside-down grill.

Outside of cooking, people sometimes use broiling to describe extremely hot weather: “It's absolutely broiling outside today!”