Added 9 October 2026

stack

/stæk/ noun

noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about stack at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

A pile. A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch. A pile of similar objects, each directly on top of the last.
Please bring me a chair from that stack in the corner.
A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch.
A pile of similar objects, each directly on top of the last.
Please bring me a chair from that stack in the corner.

To arrange in a stack, or to add to an existing stack.
Please stack those chairs in the corner.
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!
To arrange or fix to obtain an advantage; to deliberately distort the composition of (an assembly, committee, etc.).
to be stacked against (someone)

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.