stack

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
stack/stak/

▶noun

• 1 a pile, especially a neat one.

  ■ a rectangular or cylindrical pile of hay, straw, etc.

  ■ a vertical arrangement of hi-fi or guitar amplification equipment.

  ■ a pyramidal group of rifles.

• 2 informal a large quantity of something.

• 3 a chimney or vertical exhaust pipe.

• 4 a number of aircraft flying in circles at different altitudes around the same point while waiting to land at an airport.

• 5 (also sea stack) Brit. a column of rock standing in the sea.

• 6 (the stacks) units of shelving in part of a library normally closed to the public.

• 7 Computing a set of storage locations from which the most recently stored item is the first to be retrieved.

• 8 Brit. a measure for a pile of wood of 108 cu. ft (3.06 cubic metres).

▶verb

• 1 arrange in a stack.

  ■ fill or cover with stacks of things.

• 2 shuffle or arrange (a pack of cards) dishonestly.

  ■ (be stacked against/in favour of) (of a situation) be overwhelmingly likely to produce an unfavourable or favourable outcome for.

• 3 cause (an aircraft) to fly in a stack.

• 4 (stack up) N. Amer. informal measure up; compare.

• 5 (in snowboarding) fall over.

– derivatives
stackable adjective,
stacker noun.

– origin ME: from ON stakkr ‘haystack’, of Gmc origin.