Stocks

How to spell stocks

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stocks

What does stocks mean?

1. nounShares representing ownership in companies, bought and sold on financial markets.
2. nounQuantities of goods or materials kept available for sale or use.
3. nounA wooden frame with holes for the feet, historically used to confine and publicly punish offenders.

Stocks in a sentence

• She moved her savings into stocks hoping for a better return.

• The warehouse stocks of bottled water ran low during the heatwave.

• The museum displays a set of medieval stocks once used in the town square.

• The value of his stocks fell sharply after the announcement.

• Farmers built up grain stocks ahead of the winter.

• Petty offenders were locked in the stocks for everyone to see.

Where does stocks come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English stocc, which literally meant a tree trunk, stump, or wooden post; the same root gives us the heavy, solid sense that runs through every later meaning. By the medieval period the wooden idea branched out: a hollowed log became a container or fund, then the supply of goods kept on hand, and the wooden frame used to punish offenders in public. The financial sense grew from the notion of a 'stock' as a stored fund or capital, and by the 1600s shares in that capital were called stocks, especially the government and trading-company holdings traded in London. The plant called stock takes its name from its sturdy, woody stem. The plural 'stocks' is simply stock with the ordinary -s ending, and because the underlying word is so plain there is no hidden spelling trap once you remember the single c-k cluster.

How the word is built

• stock (Old English stocc: tree trunk, post)
• -s (plural)