Etymology

stack

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Today it means: A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch. Full definition →

Middle English stack ← Old Norse stakkr ← Proto-Germanic *stakkaz
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The story

  1. Dutch · calque ofstapel
  2. Proto-Germanic · derived from*stakkaz“a barn; rick; haystack”
  3. Old Norse · derived fromstakkr“a barn; haystack; heap; pile”
  4. Middle English · inherited fromstack
  5. English todaystack

From Middle English stack, stacke, stakke, stak, from Old Norse stakkr (“a barn; haystack; heap; pile”), from Proto-Germanic *stakkaz (“a barn; rick; haystack”). The data structure sense is a calque of Dutch stapel, introduced by Edsger W. Dijkstra. Cognate with Icelandic stakkur (“stack”), Swedish stack (“stack”), Danish stak (“stack”), Norwegian stakk (“stack”). Related to stake and sauna.

Words from the same roots

Old Norsestakkr all →

Stackpolesea stack

Proto-Germanic*stakkaz all →

staccatosea stack

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.