Stack (pronounced stak)
(1) A more or less orderly pile or heap.
(2) A set of shelves for books or other materials ranged compactly one above the other, as in a library.
(3) As smoke-stack, a number of chimneys or flues grouped together (and used originally to describe an especially tall structure).
(4) A vertical duct for conveying warm air from a leader to a register on an upper story of a building.
(5) A vertical waste pipe or vent pipe serving a number of floors.
(6) In informal use, a great quantity or number.
(7) In radio, an antenna consisting of a number of components connected in a substantially vertical series.
(8) In computing, a linear list arranged so that the last item stored is the first item retrieved and an area in a memory for temporary storage
(9) In military jargon, a conical, free-standing group of three rifles placed on their butts and hooked together with stacking swivels.
(10) In air traffic control, as air stack or stack-up, groups of airplanes flying nearly circular patterns at various altitudes over an airport where crowded runways, a low cloud ceiling, or other temporary conditions prevent immediate landings.
(11) In historic English measure for coal and wood, equal to 106 cubic feet (3m3).
(12) In geology, a column of rock isolated from a shore by the action of waves.
(13) In poker and some other games, the quantity of chips held by a player at a given point in a gambling game.
(14) To arrange or select unfairly in order to force a desired result, especially to load (a jury, committee, etc.) with members having a biased viewpoint.
(15) In Australian slang, to crash (typically a bike, skateboard etc).
(16) In recreational drugs as "stacked pill", a dose (most associated with MDMA) with an external coating in several (stacked) colors.
1250–1300: From the Middle English stak (pile, heap or group of things) from a Scandinavian source akin to the Old Norse stakkr (haystack), thought to be from the Proto-Germanic stakkoz & stakon- (a stake), from the primitive Indo-European stog-, a variant of steg (pole; stick (source of the English "stake")), the source also of the Old Church Slavonic stogu (heap), the Russian stog (haystack) and the Lithuanian stokas (pillar). It was cognate with the Danish stak and the Swedish stack (heap, stack).
Especially in politics, the idea of loading the membership of some body (a committee, a branch meeting etc) so that votes may be controlled is an ancient (if not noble) practice but it wasn't described as "stacking" until the early twentieth century. In some jurisdictions, the practice of "branch stacking" (paying for people to enroll in a political party, many of whom may not be aware of their involvement) has been made unlawful but the technique seems still widespread. Recent examples at the more exalted level of executive government include Liz Truss (b 1975; UK prime-minister for a few weeks in 2022) who stacked her famously brief administration exclusively with her supporters regardless of their talent and Xi Jinping (b 1953; paramount leader of the People's Republic of China since 2012) who, when re-structing the seven member Standing Committee of the Politburo after securing a third term in office, ensured no dissenting voices were likely to be heard. This worked out not well for Ms Truss; Mr Xi expects better things.
Stack in the sense of Australian slang (often as "stacked it") means "to crash" in some way, typically from a skateboard, scooter or bike and (to clarify things) the word was memorably used by #metoo campaigner Grace Tame to explain an injury sustained just after she'd upset the ruling Liberal party. In the sub-culture of recreational drugs, "stacked pills" are those with a layered color scheme suggesting some interesting variation of ingredients (although all the evidence suggests the finish is purely decorative); among the MDMA crowd "stacked disco biscuits" were said to be a 1990s favorite. As applied to the (noun) shelves in libraries upon which books are (verb) stacked, use dates from 1879 and as a description of the chimneys of factories, locomotives etc it came into use in the mid-1820s. The use in computing (the best known of which is probably the IP (Internet Protocol) stack)) dates from 1960 when the word was use to describe software consisting two or more components, the loading of which is dependent on an earlier part, hence the idea of layers which stack upon each-other. As a modifier it was used to describe the haystack in the mid-fifteenth century and in industrial architecture the smoke-stack (a very tall factory chimney) dates from the mid 1820s (although the structures pre-date the use). The use of smoke-stack was later picked up by naval architects and was applied also to steam locomotives although these exhausts weren't disproportionately tall. The verb stack emerged in early fourteenth century agriculture in the sense of "to pile up the grain into a stack" and was thus directly from the noun. Perhaps surprisingly, the adjectival use of stacked appears undocumented until 1796 when it was used as a past participle to describe the clusters of hay assembled at harvest but etymologists suspect it had long been in oral use. The adjectival use of stacked to suggest a woman who is pleasingly (even perhaps slightly disproportionately) curvaceous dates from 1942.
DeSoto's stacked tailamps
1957 DeSoto Adventurer Convertible.
DeSoto's signature triple stacked taillamps were a footnote in Detroit's macropterous era of the late 1950s, the style making possible the distinctive vertical arrangement. Chevrolet would for years make the triple lamps a trademark of their more expensive lines (although, apart from the odd special built for the show circuit, they resisted the temptation to add a third to the Corvette) but they always had them in a less memorable horizontal array. DeSoto's motif was Chrysler's most successful use of the fins but it wasn't enough to save the brand which was crowded out of the mid-priced market, not only by competition from General Motors (GM) and Ford but also by intra-corporate cannibalization, squeezed from below by Dodge and from above by Chrysler's new Newport line. Demand for DeSotos collapsed and that so many were built in 1960 was simply to use up the large inventory of parts exclusive to the brand, the last of the line, heavily discounted, not sold until well into 1961.
Open stack exhausts
The exhaust systems of most internal combustion engines are designed to allow as efficient an operation as possible over a broad range of engine speeds while performing as quietly as is required. Unlike engines used on the road, those designed for competition aren’t as compromised by the need for a wide powerband and quiet operation so open stack exhausts, optimized for flow and the reduction of back-pressure, are attractive.
Stacked: BRM P57 in its original configuration.
During the 1950s, despite engine capacity having being reduced from 4.5 (275 cubic inch) to 2.5 (153 cubic inch) litres, speeds in Formula One were increasing so the sport’s governing body (then the Commission Sportive Internationale (CSI)), a crew almost as dopey about such things as the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) are now), reacted by imposing a further reduction to 1.5 litres (92 cubic inch). The 1.5 litre formula ran between 1961 and 1965 but came under increasing criticism as being unworthy of Formula One status in an age when big-engined machinery in other categories was attracting such interest. The rules did however compel designers and engineers to conjure up some exquisite voiturettes. BRM’s jewel-like 1.5 litre V8 was the first since the one-off Mercedes-Benz W165 built for the 1939 Tripoli Grand Prix and proved successful, winning the 1962 drivers’ and constructors’ championships. To extract the maximum from the tiny V8, BRM initially ran them with eight, slightly angled, open-stack exhaust headers which were effective but, because of the limits of the metallurgy of the era they were prone to working loose so, with only the slightest sacrifice in top-end power, during 1962 an orthodox horizontal system was fabricated as a replacement.
Stacked: Graham Hill, 14th BRDC International Trophy, Silverstone, 12 May 1962.
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