stack
stack Lexical Profile
stack Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A neatly arranged pile of objects, typically resting one on top of another.
"She placed the freshly printed documents in a neat stack on her desk."
A tall chimney or exhaust pipe, especially one on a factory, ship, or locomotive.
"Dark smoke billowed from the industrial stack of the old manufacturing plant."
A dynamic data structure in computer science in which elements are added and removed from the same end, following a Last In, First Out (LIFO) principle.
"The programmer used a stack to track the sequence of function calls during execution."
• verb
To arrange a number of things in a neat pile, placing one on top of another.
"He decided to carefully stack the firewood against the side of the shed."
To arrange or shuffle a deck of cards secretly so as to gain an unfair advantage, or broadly to manipulate a situation to ensure a specific outcome.
"The critics claimed the committee had been formed to stack the odds against the challengers."
To direct aircraft to fly in circles at different altitudes over an airport while waiting for permission to land.
"Air traffic control had to stack the arriving flights due to the sudden zero-visibility fog."
• Rhymes for stack
Word Origin & Etymology
From Middle English 'stak', derived from Old Norse 'stakkr' (meaning haystack), of Germanic origin.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.