Forms: 3, 6 stac, 3–7 stak, (4 stagge), 5 sstakke, 5–6 stakk, stake, 5–7 stacke, 6 stayke, 4– stack. [a. ON. stakk-r, haystack (MSw. stakker, Sw. stack, Da. stak, Norw. dial. stakk):—OTeut. type *stakko-z, prob.:—pre-Teut. *stogno-s: cf. Russian стогъ stog haystack.]
1. A pile, heap or group of things, esp. such a pile or heap with its constituents arranged in an orderly fashion.
a. 1300. Havelok, 814. He … cast a panier on his bac, With fish giueled als a stac.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 471/2. Stacke, or heep, agger. Stacke, acervus.
1570. Levins, Manip., 5/20. A stacke, strues.
1581. Lambarde, Eiren., I. vii. (1588), 37. Not Loades, but Stackes of Statutes.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, 40. A stack of salt fish.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 341. An huddled Stack of Buildings expatiated into a large Square in the middle of the Area.
1724. Ramsay’s Tea-t. Misc. (ed. 9), I. 76. I ha’ a good ha’ house, a barn and a byer, A stack afore the door.
1856. Kane, Arctic Expl., II. xiii. 132. Stacks of jointed meat are piled upon the ice-foot.
1888. Jacobi, Printers’ Vocab., 131. Stacks, paper or printed work arranged in ‘stacks.’
b. fig. A quantity, a ‘pile.’
1894. A. Robertson, Nuggets, 64. His uncle had left him a stack of money.
1896. Mrs. Caffyn, Quaker Grandmother, 126. You’re a stack of conventions.
2. A pile of grain in the sheaf, of hay, straw, fodder, etc., gathered into a circular or rectangular form, and usually with a sloping thatched top to protect it from the weather.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 6760. If fire be kyndeld and ouertak Thoru feld, or com, or mou, or stak.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. Wace (Rolls), 14690. In eueses þey crepte, & in þe þakkes, & in hey & in corn stakkes.
c. 1400. Brut, cxcii. 212. Þe Sccottes sette in fire iij stackes of hey.
1426. Lydg., De Guil. Pilgr., 17475. I resemble vn-to that hound Wych lyggeth in a stak off hay, Groynynge al the longe day.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 471/2. Stacke, arconius.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, II. viii. 108. The corne graingis, and standand stakkis off hay.
1546–7. Test. Ebor., VI. 254. The pese stacke that I have bought.
1608. Willet, Hexapla Exod., 495. The corne reaped and gathered into shockes or stackes.
1632. Milton, L’Allegro, 51. While the Cock … to the stack, or the Barn dore, Stoutly struts his Dames before.
1795. Cowper, Needless Alarm, 23. But corn was hous’d, and beans were in the stack.
1816. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 624. The stacks should not be thatched till they have had about a week or a fortnight to settle.
1867. J. Hatton, Tallants, xv. The big yellow stacks peered out amongst the trees.
3. A pile of sticks, faggots, firewood, poles, etc.
1390. Earl Derby’s Exped. (Camden), 66/9. Pro j stak focalis.
c. 1460. Brut, ccli. 507. This same yere also, on New-yere day, at Baynard Castell, fill down A stakk of wod sodenly at afternone.
1523–34. Fitzherb., Husb., § 131. Whan thou shalt bryng them home to make a stacke of them [faggots], set the nethermoste course vpon the endes.
1625. Bacon, Ess., Custom & Educ. (Arb.), 369. The Indians (I meane the Sect of their Wise Men) lay Themselves quietly upon a Stacke of Wood, and so Sacrifice themselves by Fire.
a. 1693. Urquhart’s Rabelais, III. lii. 427. A … Stack of Timber.
1711. MS. Sessions Roll Durham, Oct. 1 Duas Strigas Ericarum anglice Stacks of Whinns.
1811. A. T. Thomson, Lond. Disp. (1818), 300. The stacks are generally built on the slope of a hill, so that the tar is easily collected, and put into barrels.
1838. G. P. R. James, Robber, I. vi. On the edge of the moor was a low shed and a stack of fern.
1854. Ronalds & Richardson, Chem. Techn. (ed. 2), I. 11. An ordinary stack or pile of American wood.
1886. Manch. Exam., 8 Jan., 6/2. The stacks of timber, which are in close proximity, being saved from destruction.
† b. A pyre or burial pile. Obs.
a. 1547. Surrey, Æneis, IV. 866. She rusheth in, and clam vp, as distraught, The buriall stack.
c. A measure of volume for wood and coal, usually 4 cubic yds. (108 cubic feet).
1651. Publ. Gen. Acts, 1326. Such … of the said Coals as have been, or usually are sold by the Stack, Ruck, Fathom, or other uncertain Denomination.
1674. Blount, Glossogr. (ed. 4), Stack of Wood, in Essex, is fourteen foot in length, three foot in heighth, and three in breadth.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Stack of Wood, (among Husband-men) a pile of Wood 3 Foot long, as many broad, and 12 Foot high.
1733. W. Ellis, Chiltern & Vale Farm., 92. Twenty one Stack of Fire-wood Billet, nine Stack of Roots.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, s.v., A stack of wood is 108 cubic feet.
4. Brickmaking. = CLAMP sb.3 1.
1816. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, I. 186. The stacks or clamps are built of the bricks themselves.
5. A number of chimneys, flues, or pipes, standing together in one group.
1667. Pepys, Diary, 29 Nov. She … heard a noise in the great stack of chimnies that goes from Sir J. Minnes’s through our house.
1746. Hervey, Medit. (1818), 26. A stack of chimneys may tumble into the street, and crush the unwary passenger.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Builder, 434. When walls contain a great number of flues, they are called stacks of chimnies.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 197. It occupied a smaller space in the centre of the floor, with a stack of flues rising over it.
1882. Worc. Exhib. Catal., III. 5. One coil-end for stack of 2-in. pipes.
b. A chimney of a house, factory, etc.; the chimney or funnel of a locomotive or steamship; also, = stack-furnace. Cf. STALK sb.1
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 357. In smelting by the reverberatory-furnace … the flame passes over the hearth, and enters into an oblique chimney, which terminates in a perpendicular one, called a stack, of considerable height.
1908. Eliz. Robins, Come & Find Me, xxi. 429. The big yellow stack belched out clouds of smoke.
† 6. A set (of corn mills). Obs.
1772. Jackson’s Oxf. Jrnl., 24 Oct. To be let—A compleat Stack of Corn Mills.
7. dial. [Cf. Færoese stakkur ‘high solitary rock in the sea.’] A columnar mass of rock, detached by the agency of water and weather from the main part of a cliff, and rising precipitously out of the sea.
[1701. J. Brand, Descr. Orkney, Zetl., etc. viii. (1883), 164. At a little distance from Papa Stour, lyes a Rock encompassed with the Sea called Frau-a-Stack, which is a Danish word, and signifieth, our Ladys Rock.]
1769. Pennant, Tour Scot. (1771), 152. Great insulated columns, called here Stacks.
1822. Hibbert, Descr. Shetl. Isl., 568. After many unsuccessful attempts to bring the boat close in to the stack the unfortunate wight was left to his fate.
1851. Sternberg, Northampt. Gloss., s.v., In Pembrokeshire the insular rocks of the coast are locally termed ‘stacks.’
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 168. [Rocks] completely isolated in the form of ‘needles,’ ‘stacks,’ and ‘skerries.’
1889. Hardwicke’s Sci. Gossip, XXV. 205. On the coast [of Sutherland] the sea has deeply eroded and tunnelled into the land … leaving … numerous stacks, islets, and spiry rocks.
8. attrib. and Comb. a. Obvious combs.: simple attrib., as (sense 2) stack-cloth, -cover, -fire, (sense 4 b) stack-pipe, -process; objective, as stack-firer, -firing; also stack-wise adv.
1832. Boston Herald, 31 July, 1. *Stack-Cloths of the same highly-approved-of description.
1799. Hull Advertiser, 12 Oct., 2/1. Mill sails, waggon, cart, and *stack covers.
1898. Westm. Gaz., 16 Sept., 7/3. *Stack fires and the demolition of cottages owing to the thatch firing.
1831. Lincoln Herald, 29 July, 4/1. Serjeant Wilde has absolutely defended the magistracy against the bellowing of the *stack-firers.
1887. Pall Mall Gaz., 6 Sept., 6/2. A man … was charged yesterday at Arrington, Cambs, with *stack firing.
1833. Loudon, Encycl. Archit., § 854. To put 3 inches lead rainwater *stack pipes, with cistern heads to bring the water to the ground in the angle of the north front.
1849. Ecclesiologist, IX. 356. The stack-pipes will communicate with these main drains.
1884. Chamb. Jrnl., 8 March, 158/2. The evils under the old ‘stack’ process of white-lead manufacture.
1881. R. Buchanan, God & the Man, III. 41. This [turf] I arranged *stackwise.
b. Special comb.: stack-bar, a hurdle for fencing a stack (sense 2) standing in an open field; stack-furnace, a tall circular blast-furnace for smelting; stack-guard (see quot. 1875); stack-pole, ? a pole round which sheaves are piled to form a stack; stack-room, a room in which books are stacked; stack-stand (see quot. 1875); stack-wood, a faggot, usually collect. sing. a load of firewood; also attrib.; stack-yard, a rick-yard.
1657. Knaresb. Wills (Surtees), II. 223. 5 *stackbarrs.
1788. W. H. Marshall, Yorksh., II. 355. Stackbars, large hurdles with which hay stacks in the field are generally fenced.
1877. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 289. 1 slag-furnace, and 2 *stack-furnaces.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Stack-guard, a temporary roof capable of elevation, and designed to protect a stack or rick of hay or grain in process of formation.
1816. U.S. Coast Survey, Deb. in Congress (1818), 2456. I began by erecting a signal … in form of a tripod, made of a ladder and two *stack-poles.
1891. Opie Read, Emmett Bonlore, 343. He was almost as high as a stackpole an’ so slim that I felt sorter anxious about him.
1884. J. Magnus Harper’s Mag., Nov., 828/1. The *stack-rooms, in which the body of the collection … is packed.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Stack-stand, a device for supporting a stack of hay or grain at a sufficient distance above the ground to preserve it dry beneath and prevent the ravages of vermin.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, 101. A round hole, which is to be formed in working up the *stack-wood, for a tunnel.
1785. J. Phillips, Treat. Inland Navig., 17. Stack-wood, for the London bakers.
1569. Reg. Privy Council Scot., II. 33. To teind, gadder, leid and place the saidis teind schaves in the *stak yaird.
1788. Trans. Soc. Arts, VI. 82. Exposed to view in barns and stackyards.
1887. Jessopp, Arcady, 11. All that this good man could make out of his stackyard in the best years.
