Stacking

How to spell stacking

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce stacking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stacking mean?

1. verbArranging objects in a pile, one on top of another, or in layers.
2. nounThe practice or method of arranging items in piles or layers.

Stacking in a sentence

• verb

  He spent the afternoon stacking boxes in the warehouse.

• noun

  Careful stacking of the pallets saved a lot of floor space.

• verb

  The staff were stacking chairs after the meeting ended.

• noun

  The manual explains the correct stacking order for fragile crates.

Where does stacking come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The base word stack comes from the Old Norse stakkr, which meant a haystack or a heap of something piled high, and it entered northern English during the Viking settlement of Britain. The original sense was firmly agricultural: a stack was a neatly built mound of hay, straw, or grain stored out in a field. Over time the meaning broadened to cover any orderly pile, from books to firewood to dishes, and the verb 'to stack' grew naturally out of the noun. The present participle stacking simply adds the regular -ing ending; note that the single k of stack doubles into ck, so the spelling keeps that ck before -ing rather than turning into a single c. The Norse root also survives in related Scandinavian words for piles and ricks, a reminder of how much everyday English vocabulary arrived with Old Norse settlers.

How the word is built

• stack (from Old Norse stakkr: a haystack, a pile)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)