Meaning

noun an orderly pile

noun (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent

noun a list in which the next item to be removed is the item most recently stored (LIFO)

originFrom 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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0