stock

Etymology 1

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

1. A store or supply.
   1. (operations) A store of goods ready for sale; inventory.
      We have a stock of televisions on hand.
   2. A supply of anything ready for use.
      Lay in a stock of wood for the winter season.
   3. Railroad rolling stock.
   4. (card games, in a card game) A stack of undealt cards made available to the players.
   5. Farm or ranch animals; livestock.
   6. The population of a given type of animal (especially fish) available to be captured from the wild for economic use.
2. (finance) The capital raised by a company through the issue of shares. The total of shares held by an individual shareholder.
   1. The price or value of the stock of a company on the stock market.
      When the bad news came out, the company's stock dropped precipitously.
   2. (especially US) A share in a company.
   3. (figurative) The measure of how highly a person or institution is valued.
      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. 2022-01-17, Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman, “Who Is King of Florida? Tensions Rise Between Trump and a Former Acolyte.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
   4. Any of several types of security that are similar to a stock, or marketed like one.
3. The raw material from which things are made; feedstock.
   1. (cooking, uncountable, countable) Broth made from meat (originally bones) or vegetables, used as a basis for stew or soup.
   2. The type of paper used in printing.
      The books were printed on a heavier stock this year.
   3. Ellipsis of film stock.
   4. Plain soap before it is coloured and perfumed.
4. Stock theater, summer stock theater.
5. The trunk and woody main stems of a tree. The base from which something grows or branches.
   1. (horticulture) The plant upon which the scion is grafted.
   2. (by extension) Lineage, family, ancestry.
      His hatred is not based upon whom these people are (like many rightwing Republicans, Gallo comes from immigrant stock), but how easily these people have come by success in America. 2003-11-14, Jacques Peretti, “You are a bad man trying to do bad things to Vincent”, in The Guardian
      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 […] 2010, Lewis Richard Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, page 108
      1. (linguistics) A larger grouping of language families: a superfamily or macrofamily.
6. Any of the several species of cruciferous flowers in the genus Matthiola.
7. A handle or stem to which the working part of an implement or weapon is attached.
   1. (firearms) The part of a rifle or shotgun that rests against the shooter's shoulder.
      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. 2013, Tom Turpin, Modern Custom Guns: Walnut, Steel, and Uncommon Artistry, 2nd edition, Iola, Wis.: Gun Digest Books, page 47
   2. The handle of a whip, fishing rod, etc.
8. Part of a machine that supports items or holds them in place.
   1. The headstock of a lathe, drill, etc.
   2. The tailstock of a lathe.
9. A bar, stick or rod.
   1. A ski pole.
   2. (nautical) A bar going through an anchor, perpendicular to the flukes.
   3. (nautical) The axle attached to the rudder, which transfers the movement of the helm to the rudder.
   4. (geology) A pipe (vertical cylinder of ore)
10. A type of (now formal or official) neckwear.
    1. A necktie or cravat, particularly a wide necktie popular in the eighteenth century, often seen today as a part of formal wear for horse riding competitions.
       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. 1915, W. Somerset Maugham, “chapter 116”, in Of Human Bondage
       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. 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia, Faber & Faber 1992 (Avignon Quintet), page 417
    2. A piece of black cloth worn under a clerical collar.
11. A bed for infants; a crib, cot, or cradle
12. (folklore) A piece of wood magically made to be just like a real baby and substituted for it by magical beings.
13. (obsolete) A cover for the legs; a stocking.
14. A block of wood; something fixed and solid; a pillar; a firm support; a post.
    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. 1655, Thomas Fuller, The History of Waltham Abbey
15. (by extension, obsolete) A person who is as dull and lifeless as a stock or post; one who has little sense.
16. (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.
17. (shipbuilding, in the plural) The frame or timbers on which a ship rests during construction.
18. (UK, in the plural) Red and grey bricks, used for the exterior of walls and the front of buildings.
19. (biology) In tectology, an aggregate or colony of individuals, such as trees, chains of salpae, etc.
20. The beater of a fulling mill.
    […]a somewhat rude machine called the stocks, and consisting of a pair of wooden mallets, worked alternately by a cog wheel. 1842, Jam Bischoff, A Comprehensive History of the Woollen and Worsted Manufactures

verb

1. To have on hand for sale.
   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. 2005, William Froug, How I Escaped from Gilligan's Island
2. To provide with material requisites; to store; to fill; to supply.
   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
3. To allow (cows) to retain milk for twenty-four hours or more prior to sale.
4. To put in the stocks as punishment.
5. (nautical) To fit (an anchor) with a stock, or to fasten the stock firmly in place.
6. (card games, dated) To arrange cards in a certain manner for cheating purposes; to stack the deck.

adj

1. Of a type normally available for purchase/in stock.
   stock items
   stock sizes
2. (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.
3. Straightforward, ordinary, just another, very basic.
   He gave me a stock answer.

Etymology 2

From Italian stoccata.

noun

1. A thrust with a rapier; a stoccado.