Word.ws English Dictionary

stack

/stæk/

stack noun: a large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch.

stack: a large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes...
Image: Adam Cuerden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

stack (plural stacks)

  1. A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch.
    • But corn was housed, and beans were in the stack.c. 1790, William Cowper, The Needless Alarm
  2. A pile of similar objects, each directly on top of the last.
    • Please bring me a chair from that stack in the corner.
  3. (UK) A pile of poles or wood, indefinite in quantity.
    • There was againſt euery Pillar, a Stacke of Billets, aboue a Mans Height;1631, Francis [Bacon], “III. Century. [Experiments in Consort Touching the Reflexion, of Sounds.]”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William...
  4. A pile of wood containing 108 cubic feet. (~3 m³)
  5. An extensive collection
    • She performed appallingly on standard neurological tests, which are, as Sacks perceptively notes, specifically designed to deconstruct the whole person into a stack of 'abilities'.1997, Guy Claxton, Hare brain, tortoise mind: why intelligence increases when you think less
    • “We said, 'Maybe we could come up with a couple of characters doing jokes,'” Correll recalled in 1972. “We had a whole stack of jokes we used to do in these home talent shows2005, Elizabeth McLeod, The Original Amos 'n' Andy: Freeman Gosden, Charles Correll and the 1928-1943 Radio Serial, McFarland, →ISBN, page 26
  6. A smokestack.
    • With just the turn of a shoulder she indicated the water front, where, at the end of the dock on which they stood, lay the good ship, Mount Vernon, river packet, the black smoke already pouring from her stacks.1910, Emerson Hough, “A Lady in Company”, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
    • Long before Shap platform showed up around a corner and the two arms on the gradient post drooped in both directions at once, Duchess of Buccleuch's amiable throbbing purr at the stack had become a fierce freight-engine bark, as she resolutely dragged at her enormous load.1949 January and February, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–1”, in Railway Magazine, page 12
  7. A linear data structure in which items inserted are removed in reverse order (the last item inserted is the first one to be removed).
  8. (often, with-definite-article) A stack data structure stored in main memory that is manipulated during machine language procedure call related instructions.
    • When the microprocessor decodes the JSR opcode, it stores the operand into the TEMP register and pushes the current contents of the PC ($00 0128) onto the stack.1992, Michael A. Miller, The 68000 Microprocessor Family: Architecture, Programming, and Applications, page 47
  9. An implementation of a protocol suite (set of protocols forming a layered architecture).
    • A TCP/IP stack is a library or set of libraries or of OS drivers that take care of networking.
    Synonyms:
    protocol stack
  10. A combination of interdependent, yet individually replaceable, software components or technologies used together on a system.
    • A Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (LAMP) stack is a configuration of four popular products for hosting websites.2016, John Paul Mueller, AWS For Admins For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 323
  11. A generalization of schemes in algebraic geometry and of sheaves.
  12. A coastal landform, consisting of a large vertical column of rock in the sea.
    • A boat's-crew landed one time upon one of the stacks with the intention of attacking the seals.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 266
Show 10 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. (library) Compactly spaced bookshelves used to house large collections of books.
    • You took me to your library and kissed me in the stacks.1994, The Magnetic Fields, “Swinging London”, in Holiday
  2. (figuratively) A large amount of an object.
    • They paid him a stack of money to keep quiet.
  3. A pile of rifles or muskets in a cone shape.
  4. The amount of money a player has on the table.
  5. A number of flues embodied in one structure, rising above the roof.
  6. A vertical drainpipe.
  7. (Australia, slang) A fall or crash, a prang.
    • "You've got to go all out in a race or you don't get a good time," he said. "But going all out means that you have a few stacks."1989 April 9, Ian Watt, “Canberra skier wins medals”, in The Canberra Times, retrieved 07 Aug 2022
    • Fan-shot footage of Bieber’s big stack (not a euphemism) sees the pop singer trying to adjust his pants during a concert in the Canadian city of Saskatoon on Thursday night, 16th June, before an audible “THWACK” can be heard as he falls off the stage.2016 June 19, Tom Williams, “Watch Justin Bieber Stack It, Fall Off Stage While Fixing His Pants”, in Music Feeds, Evolve Media, retrieved 17 Nov 2020
  8. A blend of various dietary supplements or anabolic steroids with supposed synergistic benefits.
  9. A holding pattern, with aircraft circling one above the other as they wait to land.
  10. The quantity of a given item which fills up an inventory slot or bag.
    • I've got 107 Golden Branches, but the stack size is 20 so they're taking up 6 spaces in my inventory.

Verb

stack (third-person singular simple present stacks, present participle stacking, simple past and past participle stacked)

  1. (transitive) To arrange in a stack, or to add to an existing stack.
    • Please stack those chairs in the corner.
    • James Hanson, the striker who used to stack shelves in a supermarket, flashed a superb header past Shay Given from Gary Jones's corner 10 minutes after the break.2013 January 22, Phil McNulty, “Aston Villa 2-1 Bradford (3-4)”, in BBC
  2. (transitive) To arrange the cards in a deck in a particular manner, especially for cheating.
    • This is the third hand in a row where you've drawn four of a kind. Someone is stacking the deck!
  3. (broadly, transitive) To arrange or fix to obtain an advantage; to deliberately distort the composition of (an assembly, committee, etc.).
    • to be stacked against (someone)
    • The Government was accused of stacking the parliamentary committee.
  4. (transitive) To take all the money another player currently has on the table.
    • I won Jill's last $100 this hand; I stacked her!
  5. (Australia, US, slang, transitive) To crash; to fall.
    • Jim couldn't make it today as he stacked his car on the weekend.
    • Miserable phone calls from Windsor police station or from Russell Street. ‘Mum, I′ve stacked the car; could you get me a lawyer?’, the middle-class panacea for all diseases.1975, Laurie Clancy, A Collapsible Man, Outback Press, page 43
    Synonyms:
    smash, wreck
  6. To operate cumulatively.
    • A magical widget will double your mojo. And yes, they do stack: if you manage to get two magical widgets, your mojo will be quadrupled. With three, it will be octupled, and so forth.
  7. (transitive) To place (aircraft) into a holding pattern.
  8. (informal, intransitive) To collect precious metal in the form of various small objects such as coins and bars.
  9. To have excessive ink transfer.
    Antonyms:
    skip

Proper noun capitalized: Stack

Stack

  1. A surname.

stack meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

stack in Hindi

pile of identical objects
धुआँरा dhuā̃rā

stack in Tamil

அடுக்கு, குவியல், வைக்கோற் போர், வைக்கோல் போர், புகைக்குழாய்த்தொகுதி, வைக்கோற்போர்

stack in Marathi

to stack, arrange, plan, compose
रचणे raċṇe

stack in Urdu

stack, hoard, collection
انبار ambār
More languagesFewer languages
stack in Bengali
গাদা, প্রচুর পরিমাণ, গাদা করা
stack in Telugu
స్ట్యాక్, స్ట్యాక్ చేయడానికి, స్ట్యాక్ చెయ్యడానికి
stack in Malayalam
കൂനകൂട്ടുക kūnakūṭṭuka, അടുക്കുക aṭukkuka
stack in Kannada
ಬಳಂಬೆ, ಬಣಂಬೆ, ಬಣಬೆ, ಬಣವೆ
stack in Punjabi
ਸਟੈਕ, ਸਟੈਕ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
stack in Gujarati
સ્ટેક, સ્ટૅક
stack in Odia
ଷ୍ଟ୍ଯ଼ାକ୍, ଷ୍ଟେକ, ଷ୍ଟ୍ଯ଼ାକ୍ କରିବା ପାଇଁ
stack in Nepali
स्ट्याक, स्ट्याक गर्न, स्ट्याक गर्नाका निम्ति
stack in Arabic
كَوْمَة kawma, كُومَة kūma
stack in Persian
پشته pošte
stack in Vietnamese
chồng

Examples of stack in a sentence

  • It is no good having a great stack of skills in a workplace if the employer does not utilise them properly2007, Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Education and Skills Committee, Post-16 skills: ninth report of session 2006-07, Vol. 2...
  • The leading engine was one of the Class Y6 2-8-8-2 compound articulateds, [...] The stack noise of one of these great brutes slogging up a grade was quite unforgettable.1961 July, J. Geoffrey Todd, “Impressions of railroading in the United States: Part Two”, in Trains Illustrated, page 419:
  • Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.[…]A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that.2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist:
  • Many citizens support the recent attacks on democracy, and those who don’t face a system stacked against them.2021 July 14, David A. Graham, “Biden Is Speaking to an America That Doesn’t Exist”, in The Atlantic:

All 40 example sentences with stack

Synonyms of stack

7 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of stack

Forms of stack

Noun
pluralstacks
Verb
third-person singular presentstacks
present participlestacking
past participlestacked
paststacked

Past tense of stack: stacked

Plural of stack: stacks

Origin of stack

From Middle English stack, stacke, stakke, stak, from Old Norse stakkr (“a barn; haystack; heap; pile”), from Proto-Germanic *stakkaz (“a barn; rick; haystack”). The data structure sense is a calque of Dutch stapel, introduced by Edsger W. Dijkstra. Cognate with Icelandic stakkur (“stack”), Swedish stack (“stack”), Danish stak (“stack”), Norwegian stakk (“stack”). Related to stake and sauna.

Words formed from stack

Phrases with stack

31 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with stack

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about stack

What does stack mean?
Stack means a large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch.
What is stack in Hindi?
Stack in Hindi is धुआँरा (dhuā̃rā). See Stack meaning in Hindi.
How do you use stack in a sentence?
It is no good having a great stack of skills in a workplace if the employer does not utilise them properly
What part of speech is stack?
Stack can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce stack?
Stack is pronounced /stæk/ (UK).
What is the plural of stack?
The plural of stack is stacks.

Words near stack in the dictionary

  1. stachylysin
  2. stachyose
  3. Staci
  4. Stacie
  5. stacies
  6. stack
  7. stack chips
  8. stack effect
  9. stack effects
  10. stack frame
  11. stack frames

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stack (page history and authors); Stack (page history and authors); stack (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); रचणे (Marathi) (page history and authors); انبار (Urdu) (page history and authors); stack (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stack (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stack (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stack (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stack (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stack (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stack (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-stack.wav, en-au-stack.ogg.

Cite this entry: “stack.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stack. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.