Definition of "stock"

stock¹

/stɒk/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural stocks or (obsolete) stocken
1. A store or supply.
  1. (operations) A store of goods ready for sale; inventory.
  2. A supply of anything ready for use.
  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.
  2. (especially US) A share in a company.
  3. (figurative) The measure of how highly a person or institution is valued.
    Quotations
    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 January 17, Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman, “Who Is King of Florida? Tensions Rise Between Trump and a Former Acolyte.”, in The New York Times‎
  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.
  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.
  Quotations
  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.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Job 14:8–9
  1. (horticulture) The plant upon which the scion is grafted.
    Quotations
    The cion overruleth the stock quite.
    1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]
  2. (by extension) Lineage, family, ancestry.
    Quotations
    UUhat, ſhall I call thee brother? No, a foe,Monſter of Nature, ſhame vnto thy ſtocke,That darſt preſume thy Soueraigne for to mocke.
    c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, Act I, scene i
    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 November 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
    (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.
    Quotations
    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.
    Quotations
    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.
    1904–1906, Joseph Conrad, chapter IV, in The Mirror of the Sea, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers, published October 1906
  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.
    Quotations
    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.
  Quotations
  When all our Fathers worſhip't Stocks and Stones,
  1673, John Milton, “[Sonnet] XV. On the late Massacher in Piemont.”, in Poems, &c. upon Several Occasions, London: […] Tho[mas] Dring […], page 58
  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.
  Quotations
  Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks.
  c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]
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.
  Quotations
  […] 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
third-person singular simple present stocks, present participle stocking, simple past and past participle stocked
1. To have on hand for sale.
  Quotations
  ...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.
  Quotations
  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.
  1951 February, K. Westcott Jones, “Some Australian Railway Byways”, in Railway Magazine, page 118
3. To allow (cows) to retain milk for twenty-four hours or more prior to sale.
4. To put in the stocks as punishment.
  Quotations
  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
  c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)
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.
adjective
not comparable
1. Of a type normally available for purchase/in stock.
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.

stock²

/stɒk/

noun
plural stocks
1. A thrust with a rapier; a stoccado.