Origin and history of stove

late 14c., steuen, transitive "to bathe (a person or a body part) in a steam bath" (a sense now obsolete), from Old French estuver "have a hot bath, plunge into a bath; stew" (Modern French étuver), a word of uncertain origin. It is common Romanic (cognates: Spanish estufar, Italian stufare), possibly from Vulgar Latin *extufare "evaporate," from ex- "out" + *tufus "vapor, steam," from Greek typhos "smoke." Compare Old English stuf-bæþ "hot-air bath;" and compare stove, which might be related and also originally meant "heated room, bath-room." 

The intransitive sense is by c. 1400. The transitive meaning "boil slowly, cook (meat. etc.) by simmering it in liquid" is attested from late 14c.

The figurative meaning "be left to the consequences of one's actions" is from 1650s, especially in fuller figurative expressions such as stew in one's own juice (1885) or grease, also in early use, water (on the image of oysters). Related: Stewed; stewing. Slang stewed "drunk" is attested by 1737.

also stove-pipe, 1690s, "hothouse pipe," from stove (n.) + pipe (n.). As a metal pipe for conducting smoke, gases, etc. from a stove to a chimney, by 1796.

Stove-pipe hat, as a type of hat for men, is by 1849, American English, so called for being tall and cylindrical like a stove-pipe; British English seems to have preferred chimney-pot hat. for it (1845).

The most characteristic trait of the hat is the tightness with which it encircles the head. Herein consists, in our opinion, its agency in the loss of hair. The stove-pipe hat must needs encircle the head tightly, in order to be secure in its position in spite of wind and other disturbing forces. To appreciate the degree of compression, one has only to note the indentation left on the forehead after a tightly fitting hat has been worn for some time. ["Hats and Baldness," in Buffalo Medical Journal, March 1853]