stack
part of speech
noun (a stack, stacks); verb (stack, stacks, stacked, stacking)
meaning for a pupil
1) A stack is a neat pile of things one on top of another. tree →
2) To stack is to make such a pile. tree →
3) Stacks of something means a lot of it (informal): «stacks of homework». tree →
4) A stack is also a tall chimney. tree →
sense in the lessons
equal piles: things in each stack × stacks; in everyday life: stack the chairs at the end of the day, a stack of pancakes, stack the dishwasher; in maths: stacking cubes to build towers and count them; phrases: «a stack of», «stack up» (pile up, or compare)
examples
- There are 5 stacks of 10 plates. tree →
- She stacks 24 books in 3 stacks. tree →
- Each stack has 12 boxes. tree →
- How tall is a stack of 8 cups? tree →
- Please stack your chairs before you go home. tree →
- He ate a stack of pancakes with syrup. tree →
- We stacked cubes into a tower of 10. tree →
- I have stacks of homework tonight. tree →
- How does our team stack up against theirs? tree →
- Then he hastily stepped behind the wood stack, and waited for what might happen next. tree →
note
Equal groups: multiply or divide. Height of a stack = number of things × height of one (if they do not fit inside each other). Trap: cups that nest inside each other add less than their full height each.
In the corpora
- Bricks that overlap the joins, like a real brick wall, make a much stronger tower than bricks stacked straight up.
- At Mezhyrich in Ukraine, about 15,000 years ago, people built huts from mammoth bones, with jaws stacked in a neat zigzag.
- Before stacking plates, scrape the leftovers into the bin or the food caddy, a small bin just for food scraps.
- Waves cut caves into headlands, the caves join into arches, and when arches fall, stacks are left.
- Australia's Twelve Apostles are limestone stacks that are slowly collapsing as the sea erodes them.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «stack» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.