v.
Pronunciation: ə - ' n ē l
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English anelen to set on fire, from Old English on ǣ lan, from on + ǣ lan to set on fire, burn, from ā l fire; akin to Old English ǣ led fire, Old Norse eldr
Date: 1664
transitive verb
1 a : to heat and then cool (as steel or glass) usually for softening and making less brittle also : to cool slowly usually in a furnace b : to heat and then cool (double-stranded nucleic acid) in order to separate strands and induce combination at lower temperature with complementary strands
2 : STRENGTHEN , TOUGHEN
intransitive verb : to be capable of combining with complementary nucleic acid by a process of heating and cooling