Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A large, usually conical pile of straw or fodder arranged for outdoor storage.
  • noun An orderly pile, especially one arranged in layers: synonym: heap.
  • noun Computers A section of memory and its associated registers used for temporary storage of information in which the item most recently stored is the first to be retrieved.
  • noun A group of three rifles supporting each other, butt downward and forming a cone.
  • noun A chimney or flue.
  • noun A group of chimneys arranged together.
  • noun A vertical exhaust pipe, as on a ship or locomotive.
  • noun An extensive arrangement of bookshelves.
  • noun The area of a library in which most of the books are shelved.
  • noun A stackup.
  • noun An English measure of coal or cut wood, equal to 108 cubic feet (3.06 cubic meters).
  • noun Informal A large quantity.
  • intransitive verb To arrange in a stack; pile.
  • intransitive verb To load or cover with stacks or piles.
  • intransitive verb Games To prearrange the order of (a deck of cards) so as to increase the chance of winning.
  • intransitive verb To prearrange or fix unfairly so as to favor a particular outcome.
  • intransitive verb To direct (aircraft) to circle at different altitudes while waiting to land.
  • intransitive verb To form a stack.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To pile or build in the form of a stack; make into a regularly formed pile: as, to stack grain.
  • To make up (cards) in a designed manner, so as to secure an unfair advantage; pack.
  • An obsolete or dialectal preterit of stick (and stick).
  • noun A pile of grain in the sheaf, or of hay, straw, pease, etc., gathered into a circular or rectangular form, often, when of large size, coming to a point or ridge at the top, and thatched to protect it from the weather.
  • noun A pile of sticks, billets, poles, or cordwood; formerly, also, a pyre, or burial pile.
  • noun A pile or group of other objects in orderly position.
  • noun A number of funnels or chimneys standing together.
  • noun A single chimney or passageway for smoke; the chimney or funnel of a locomotive or steam-vessel: also called smokestack. See cuts under passenger-engine and puddling-furnace.
  • noun A high detached rock; a columnar rock; a precipitous rock rising out of the sea.
  • noun A customary unit of volume for fire-wood and coal, generally 4 cubic yards (108 cubic feet). The three-quarter stack in parts of Derbyshire is said to be 105 or 106 cubic feet.
  • noun plural A large quantity; “lots”: as, stacks of money.
  • noun In gambling and banking games, twenty chips or counters.
  • noun A group of retorts set together in the furnace for the manufacture of coal-gas.
  • noun That part of a blast-furnace which extends from the boshes to the throat.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To lay in a conical or other pile; to make into a large pile
  • transitive verb To place in a vertical arrangement so that each item in a pile is resting on top of another item in the pile, except for the bottom item.
  • transitive verb To select or arrange dishonestly so as to achieve an unfair advantage.
  • transitive verb (Mil.) to set up a number of muskets or rifles together, with the bayonets crossing one another, and forming a sort of conical pile.
  • noun A large and to some degree orderly 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.
  • noun An orderly pile of any type of object, indefinite in quantity; -- used especially of piles of wood. A stack is usually more orderly than a pile
  • noun engraving A pile of wood containing 108 cubic feet.
  • noun Informal A large quantity.
  • noun A number of flues embodied in one structure, rising above the roof.
  • noun Any single insulated and prominent structure, or upright pipe, which affords a conduit for smoke.
  • noun A section of memory in a computer used for temporary storage of data, in which the last datum stored is the first retrieved.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English stac, from Old Norse stakkr.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old Norse stakkr; compare Icelandic stakkur, Swedish stacka, Danish stakke.

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Examples

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  • See space shuttle.

    P.S. Weirdnet, sometimes I love you.

    July 24, 2009

  • "Of the total screen time, simultaneous use with TV is taking place around a third of the time. Millward Brown then breaks down simultaneous time into two categories: “stacking,” or using a digital screen for matters unrelated to the television, and “meshing,” which means using the second screen to enhance the TV experience. Those who stack tend to be filling time during ad breaks or watching TV somewhat halfheartedly. Those who mesh are mostly looking for more information or engaging in social media chatter about a show. Millward Brown says Americans are most likely to stack, while viewers in Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea are most likely to mesh.

    - Will Palley Why TV viewers 'stack' or 'mesh' digital devices, JWT Intelligence, 21 March 2014.

    March 21, 2014