stockpile
English
WOTD – 26 August 2022
Etymology
The noun is derived from stock (“supply of anything ready for use”) + pile (“mass of things heaped together”).[1]
The verb is derived from the noun.[2]
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈstɒkpaɪl/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈstɑkˌpaɪl/
- Hyphenation: stock‧pile
Noun
stockpile (plural stockpiles) (originally US, also figuratively)
- A supply (especially a large one) of something kept for future use, specifically in case the cost of the item increases or if there a shortage.
- 2017 August 25, Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Panarat Thepgumpanat, “Thailand’s ousted PM Yingluck has fled abroad: sources”, in Reuters, archived from the original on 9 January 2022:
- Under the rice subsidy program, Yingluck [Shinawatra]'s administration paid farmers up to 50 percent more than market prices for their rice. The policy was popular with farmers but left Thailand with huge rice stockpiles and caused $8 billion in losses.
- (specifically, military, weaponry) A supply of nuclear weapons kept by a country; a nuclear stockpile.
- (mining) A pile of coal or ore heaped up on the ground after it has been mined.
Related terms
- nuclear pile (semantically quite different from a nuclear stockpile)
Translations
supply of something kept for future use
|
supply of nuclear weapons kept by a country
pile of coal or ore heaped up on the ground after it has been mined
|
Verb
stockpile (third-person singular simple present stockpiles, present participle stockpiling, simple past and past participle stockpiled) (originally US, also figuratively)
- (transitive)
- To accumulate or build up a supply of (something).
- 2007 June–July (date recorded), Nick Cave (lyrics and music), “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!”, in Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, published 18 February 2008, performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds:
- He stockpiled weapons and took pot shots in the air / He feasted on their lovely bodies like a lunatic
- 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, ISSN 0261-3077, OCLC 229952407, archived from the original on 11 July 2022:
- He [Jeff Bezos] once suggested that, by paying college students on every Manhattan block to stockpile products in their apartments and to shuttle them up and down on bicycles, Amazon could edge towards near-instant delivery.
- (specifically, military, weaponry) To build up a stock of (nuclear weapons).
-
- (mining) To heap up piles of (coal or ore) on the ground after it has been mined.
- To accumulate or build up a supply of (something).
- (intransitive) To build up a supply; to accumulate.
Derived terms
- stockpiled (adjective)
- stockpiler
- stockpiling (noun)
Translations
to accumulate or build up a supply of (something)
|
to build up a stock of (nuclear weapons)
to heap up piles of (coal or ore) on the ground after it has been mined
to build up a supply — see accumulate
References
- “stockpile, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “stockpile, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. - “stockpile, v.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2019; “stockpile, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading
stockpile on Wikipedia.Wikipedia - stockpile (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia