Etimology
From Old English stocc, from Proto-West Germanic *stokk, from Proto-Germanic *stukkaz (“tree-trunk”), with modern senses mostly referring either to the trunk from which the tree grows (figuratively, its origin and/or support/foundation), or to a piece of wood, stick, or rod. The senses of "supply" and "raw material" arose from a probable conflation with steck (“an item of goods, merchandise”) or the use of split tally sticks consisting of foil or counterfoil and stock to capture paid taxes, debts or exchanges. Doublet of chock.
noun
stock (countable and uncountable, plural stocks or (obsolete) stocken)
A store or supply.
(finance) The capital raised by a company through the issue of shares. The total of shares held by an individual shareholder.
The raw material from which things are made; feedstock.
Stock theater, summer stock theater.
The trunk and woody main stems of a tree. The base from which something grows or branches.
Any of the several species of cruciferous flowers in the genus Matthiola.
A handle or stem to which the working part of an implement or weapon is attached.
Part of a machine that supports items or holds them in place.
A bar, stick or rod.
A type of (now formal or official) neckwear.
A bed for infants; a crib, cot, or cradle
(folklore) A piece of wood magically made to be just like a real baby and substituted for it by magical beings.
(obsolete) A cover for the legs; a stocking.
A block of wood; something fixed and solid; a pillar; a firm support; a post.
(by extension, obsolete) A person who is as dull and lifeless as a stock or post; one who has little sense.
(UK, historical) The longest part of a split tally stick formerly struck in the exchequer, which was delivered to the person who had lent the king money on account, as the evidence of indebtedness.
(shipbuilding, in the plural) The frame or timbers on which a ship rests during construction.
(UK, in the plural) Red and grey bricks, used for the exterior of walls and the front of buildings.
(biology) In tectology, an aggregate or colony of individuals, such as trees, chains of salpae, etc.
The beater of a fulling mill.
Examples
We have a stock of televisions on hand.
Lay in a stock of wood for the winter season.
When the bad news came out, the company's stock dropped precipitously.
Synonym: reputation
After that last screw-up of mine, my stock is pretty low around here.
With his stock rising fast in the party, the governor has conspicuously refrained from saying he would stand aside if Mr. Trump runs for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.
The books were printed on a heavier stock this year.
Though the roote thereof waxe old in the earth, and the stocke thereof die in the ground: Yet through the sent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughes like a plant.
The cion overruleth the stock quite.
UUhat, ſhall I call thee brother? No, a foe,Monſter of Nature, ſhame vnto thy ſtocke,That darſt preſume thy Soueraigne for to mocke.
His hatred is not based upon whom these people are , but how easily these people have come by success in America.
We may also conclude that as it was the Ionic γένη of the Attic tetrapolis who in the main achieved the Ionization of Athens, so it was a branch of this same stock that settled at Delos […]
The most underrated component in building a custom gun is the metalsmithing. Stock work immediately attracts attention. Fancy checkering patterns, meticulously executed, are sure to elicit oohs and ahhs.
The honest, rough piece of iron, so simple in appearance, has more parts than the human body has limbs: the ring, the stock, the crown, the flukes, the palms, the shank. All this, according to the journalist, is “cast” when a ship arriving at an anchorage is brought up.
He wore a brown tweed suit and a white stock. His clothes hung loosely about him as though they had been made for a much larger man. He looked like a respectable farmer of the middle of the nineteenth century.
His grey waistcoat sported pearl buttons, and he wore a stock which set off to admiration a lean and aquiline face which was almost as grey as the rest of him.
When all our Fathers worſhip't Stocks and Stones,
Item, for a stock of brass for the holy water, seven shillings; which, by the canon, must be of marble or metal, and in no case of brick.
Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks.
[…] a somewhat rude machine called the stocks, and consisting of a pair of wooden mallets, worked alternately by a cog wheel.
Related words
synonyms
(farm or ranch animals): livestock
(railroad equipment): rolling stock
(raw material): feedstock
(paper for printing): card stock
(plant used in grafting): rootstock, understock
(axle attached to rudder): rudder stock
(wide necktie): stock-tie
hyponyms
buffer stock
capital stock
certificated stock
coaching stock
common stock
corporate stock
deferred stock
empty stock working
evening stock (Matthiola longipetala)
fish stock
growth stock
hoary stock (Matthiola incana)
night-scented stock (Matthiola longipetala)
penny stock
preference stock
preferred stock
private stock
restricted stock
sad stock (Matthiola fruticulosa)
sea stock (Matthiola sinuata)
standing stock
take stock
three-horned stock (Matthiola tricuspidata)
tracking stock
treasury stock
unissued stock
verb
stock (third-person singular simple present stocks, present participle stocking, simple past and past participle stocked)
To have on hand for sale.
To provide with material requisites; to store; to fill; to supply.
To allow (cows) to retain milk for twenty-four hours or more prior to sale.
To put in the stocks as punishment.
(nautical) To fit (an anchor) with a stock, or to fasten the stock firmly in place.
(card games, dated) To arrange cards in a certain manner for cheating purposes; to stack the deck.
Examples
The store stocks all kinds of dried vegetables.
...he would not stock any product on his shelves from any company that hired a communist or, as it was called at the time, a comsymp.
to stock a warehouse with goods
to stock a farm, i.e. to supply it with cattle and tools
to stock land, i.e. to occupy it with a permanent growth, especially of grass
A rather interesting and notable convenience, however, is that of ice water bags, which are hung on to the outside of the coaches at certain stops. These can be reached by leaning out of the window rather perilously, to unhook them, and paper cups are stocked in the compartments.
Poor Tom, that […] eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat, and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipp'd from tything to tything, and stock'd, punish'd, and imprison'd
adjective
stock (not comparable)
Of a type normally available for purchase/in stock.
(motor racing, of a race car) Having the same configuration as cars sold to the non-racing public, or having been modified from such a car.
Straightforward, ordinary, just another, very basic.
Examples
stock items
stock sizes
He gave me a stock answer.
Etimology
From Italian stoccata.
noun
stock (plural stocks)
A thrust with a rapier; a stoccado.