stock

adj 1: repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse; "bromidic

sermons"; "his remarks were trite and commonplace";

"hackneyed phrases"; "a stock answer"; "repeating

threadbare jokes"; "parroting some timeworn axiom";

"the trite metaphor `hard as nails'" [syn: {banal}, {commonplace},

{hackneyed}, {shopworn}, {stock(a)}, {threadbare}, {timeworn},

{tired}, {trite}, {well-worn}]

2: routine; "a stock answer"

3: regularly and widely used or sold; "a standard size"; "a

stock item" [syn: {standard}]

n 1: the capital raised by a corporation through the issue of

shares entitling holders to partial ownership; "he owns

a controlling share of the company's stock"

2: liquid in which meat and vegetables are simmered; used as a

basis for e.g. soups or sauces; "she made gravy with a

base of beef stock" [syn: {broth}]

3: the merchandise that a shop has on hand; "they carried a

vast inventory of hardware" [syn: {inventory}]

4: a supply of something available for future use; "he brought

back a large store of Cuban cigars" [syn: {store}, {fund}]

5: not used technically; any animals kept for use or profit

[syn: {livestock}, {farm animal}]

6: the descendants of one individual; "his entire lineage has

been warriors" [syn: {lineage}, {line}, {line of descent},

{descent}, {bloodline}, {blood line}, {blood}, {pedigree},

{ancestry}, {origin}, {parentage}]

7: the handle of a handgun or the butt end of a rifle or

shotgun or part of the support of a machine gun or

artillery gun; "the rifle had been fitted with a special

stock" [syn: {gunstock}]

8: the reputation and popularity a person has; "his stock was

so high he could have been elected mayor"

9: a special kind of domesticated animals within a species; "he

experimented on a particular breed of white rats"; "he

created a new variety of sheep" [syn: {breed}, {strain}, {variety}]

10: wood used in the construction of something; "they will cut

round stock to 1-inch diameter"

11: a certificate documenting the shareholder's ownership in the

corporation; "the value of his stocks doubled during the

past year" [syn: {stock certificate}]

12: any of various ornamental flowering plants of the genus

Malcolmia [syn: {Malcolm stock}]

13: a plant or stem onto which a graft is made; especially a

plant grown specifically to provide the root part of

grafted plants

14: any of several Old World plants cultivated for their

brightly colored flowers [syn: {gillyflower}]

15: the handle end of some implements or tools; "he grabbed the

cue by the stock"

16: persistent thickened stem of a herbaceous perennial plant

[syn: {caudex}]

17: an ornamental white cravat [syn: {neckcloth}]

v 1: have on hand; "Do you carry kerosene heaters?" [syn: {carry},

{stockpile}]

2: stock up on to keep for future use or sale; "let's stock

coffee as long as prices are low" [syn: {buy in}]

3: provide or furnish with a stock of something; "stock the

larder with meat"

stack

(See below for synonyms) A data structure for

storing items which are to be accessed in last-in first-out

order.

The operations on a stack are to create a new stack, to "push"

a new item onto the top of a stack and to "pop" the top item

off. Error conditions are raised by attempts to pop an empty

stack or to push an item onto a stack which has no room for

further items (because of its implementation).

Most processors include support for stacks in their

{instruction set architecture}s. Perhaps the most common use

of stacks is to store subroutine arguments and return

addresses. This is usually supported at the {machine code}

level either directly by "jump to subroutine" and "return from

subroutine" instructions or by {auto-increment} and

auto-decrement {addressing mode}s, or both. These allow a

contiguous area of memory to be set aside for use as a stack

and use either a special-purpose {register} or a general

purpose register, chosen by the user, as a {stack pointer}.

The use of a stack allows subroutines to be {recursive} since

each call can have its own calling context, represented by a

stack frame or {activation record}. There are many other

uses. The programming language {Forth} uses a data stack in

place of variables when possible.

Although a stack may be considered an {object} by users,

implementations of the object and its access details differ.

For example, a stack may be either ascending (top of stack is

at highest address) or descending. It may also be "full" (the

stack pointer points at the top of stack) or "empty" (the

stack pointer points just past the top of stack, where the

next element would be pushed). The full/empty terminology is

used in the {Acorn Risc Machine} and possibly elsewhere.

In a list-based or {functional language}, a stack might be

implemented as a {linked list} where a new stack is an empty

list, push adds a new element to the head of the list and pop

splits the list into its head (the popped element) and tail

(the stack in its modified form).

At {MIT}, {pdl} used to be a more common synonym for stack,

and this may still be true. {Knuth} ("The Art of Computer

Programming", second edition, vol. 1, p. 236) says:

Many people who realised the importance of stacks and queues

independently have given other names to these structures:

stacks have been called push-down lists, reversion storages,

cellars, dumps, nesting stores, piles, last-in first-out

("LIFO") lists, and even yo-yo lists!

[{Jargon File}]

(1995-04-10)