stack
/stæk/ noun, verb, proper noun
- noun A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch.
- noun A pile of similar objects, each directly on top of the last. “Please bring me a chair from that stack in the corner.”
- noun (UK) A pile of poles or wood, indefinite in quantity.
- noun A pile of wood containing 108 cubic feet. (~3 m³)
- noun An extensive collection
- noun A smokestack.
- noun (programming) A linear data structure in which items inserted are removed in reverse order (the last item inserted is the first one to be removed).
- noun (computing, often with "the") A stack data structure stored in main memory that is manipulated during machine language procedure call related instructions.
- verb (transitive) To arrange in a stack, or to add to an existing stack. “Please stack those chairs in the corner.”
- verb (transitive, card games) 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!”
- verb (transitive, by extension) To arrange or fix to obtain an advantage; to deliberately distort the composition of (an assembly, committee, etc.). “to be stacked against (someone)”
- verb (transitive, poker) To take all the money another player currently has on the table. “I won Jill's last $100 this hand; I stacked her!”
- verb (transitive, US, Australia, slang) To crash; to fall. “Jim couldn't make it today as he stacked his car on the weekend.”
- verb (gaming) 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.”
- verb (aviation, transitive) To place (aircraft) into a holding pattern.
- verb (informal, intransitive) To collect precious metal in the form of various small objects such as coins and bars.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
protocol stack technology stack build up stack up accumulate agglomerate amass cumulate heap heap up mound pile pile up rack up upheap smash wreck batch deal flock good deal great deal hatful lot mass mess mickle mint mountain muckle
Antonyms
Etymology
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.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, usually of a nearly conical form, but sometimes rectangular or oblong, contracted at the top to a point or ridge, and sometimes covered with thatch.
- adjective A pile of poles or wood, indefinite in quantity.
- verb To lay in a conical or other pile; to make into a large pile; as, to stack hay, cornstalks, or grain; to stack or place wood. To stack arms (Mil.), to set up a number of muskets or rifles together, with the bayonets crossing one another, and forming a sort of conical pile.
Etymology [Icel. stakkr; akin to Sw. stack, Dan. stak. Sf. Stake.]
Etymology [Cf. Sw. stacka, Dan. stakke. See Stack, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “stack”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details