stack

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   arrange the order of so as to increase one's winning chances

   stack the deck of cards

2. 2
   verb

   load or cover with stacks

   stack a truck with boxes

3. 3
   noun

   A pile.

   But corn was housed, and beans were in the stack.

4. 4
   noun

   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.

5. 5
   noun

   Compactly spaced bookshelves used to house large collections of books.

   You took me to your library and kissed me in the stacks.

6. 6
   noun

   A large amount of an object.

   They paid him a stack of money to keep quiet.

7. 7
   noun

   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."

8. 8
   noun

   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.

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.