stack
/stæk/noun, verb
stack is spelled S-T-A-C-K: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 11 times per million words in written English, the 6,565th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, stack means “A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of stack is stacks.
How many letters and syllables are in stack?
| Letters | 5: S-T-A-C-K |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 11 times per million words; the 6,565th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is stack?
Stack appears 11 times per million words in written English, the 6,565th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce stack?
- US /stæk/
Stack has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-I_learned_some_phrases-stack.wav, En-au-stack.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with stack?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as stack from its last stressed vowel (/æk/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of stack
- stacks plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- stacking participle, present
- stacked participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does stack mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch.
- 2
A pile of similar objects, each directly on top of the last.
Please bring me a chair from that stack in the corner.
- 3
UKA pile of poles or wood, indefinite in quantity.
- 4
A pile of wood containing 108 cubic feet. (~3 m³)
- 5
An extensive collection
Going back to an earlier question, which I think is very important, this question of how you use skills. It is no good having a great stack of skills in a workplace if the employer does not utilise them properly
- 6
A smokestack.
- 7
A linear data structure in which items inserted are removed in reverse order (the last item inserted is the first one to be removed).
- 8
A stack data structure stored in main memory that is manipulated during machine language procedure call related instructions.
verb
- 1
To arrange in a stack, or to add to an existing stack.
Please stack those chairs in the corner.
- 2
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!
- 3
To arrange or fix to obtain an advantage; to deliberately distort the composition of (an assembly, committee, etc.).
to be stacked against (someone)
- 4
To take all the money another player currently has on the table.
I won Jill's last $100 this hand; I stacked her!
- 5
AustraliaUSslangTo crash; to fall.
Jim couldn't make it today as he stacked his car on the weekend.
- 6
To operate cumulatively.
A magical widget will double your mojo. And yes, they do stack: if you manage to get two magical widgets, your mojo will be quadrupled. With three, it will be octupled, and so forth.
- 7
To place (aircraft) into a holding pattern.
- 8
informalTo collect precious metal in the form of various small objects such as coins and bars.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate stack?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of stack: stk.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Stack in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | pile , empiler |
| German | Stapel, Feime, Schober, Diemen , stapeln , Stapelspeicher |
| Portuguese | pilha , empilhar |
| Spanish | pila, montón, hacina, arcina, almiar, rimero |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does stack come from?
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).