Stock

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• (Stockton): Clipping of Stockton.

Stock (countable and uncountable, plural Stocks)

1. A village and civil parish in Chelmsford district, Essex, England, United Kingdom (OS grid ref TQ6998).
2. A surname.
   • 2025 July 3, Ben Whedon, “Reshaping the right: A generational divide heralds a transformation of the GOP”, in Just the News‎^[1]:

     Speaking on the John Solomon Reports podcast this week, conservative activist and RiftTV contributor Sarah Stock attributed some of the divide to a generational split in how conservatives consume information.

3. Diminutive of Stockton (“personal name”).

• 'tocks, tocks

From Middle High German stoc, from Old High German stoc, from Proto-West Germanic *stokk.

• IPA^(key): /ʃtɔk/

Stock m (plural Stöck or Stäck, diminutive Stöckelche or Stäckelche)

1. (most dialects) stick; staff
2. (most dialects) floor; storey; level

• The inflected forms with -ö- are Ripuarian, those with -ä- are Moselle Franconian.

• Stok (obsolete)

From Middle High German stoc, from Old High German stoc, from Proto-West Germanic *stokk.

• IPA^(key): /ʃtɔk/

• Audio:

  (file)

Stock m (strong, genitive Stockes or Stocks, plural Stöcke or Stöcker, diminutive Stöckchen n)

1. stick, staff, broken-off twig

   Ich weiß nicht, wo ich den Stock gelassen habe; haben Sie ihn nicht gesehen?

   I don't know where I've left the staff; haven't you seen it?

2. floor, storey, level

   im dritten Stock ― on the third floor (UK counting)/fourth floor (US counting)

3. stock, supply (but only in some contexts and much less common than in English)
4. (card games) pile of undealt cards, deck
5. the entirety of roots of a plant; stock
6. (short for Bienenstock) hive; beehive

• The standard plural is Stöcke.
• The alternative plural Stöcker is used in northern and eastern Germany (chiefly in colloquial usage and usually only for the sense “stick, staff”).

• (stick): Stab
• (storey): Etage; Stockwerk
• (deck of cards): Talon
• (tree trunk): Stumpen; Stumpf

• steif wie ein Stock

• “Stock” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “Stock” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• “Stock” in Duden online
• Stock on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^de
• Friedrich Kluge (1883) “Stock”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891

Inherited from Central Franconian Stock, from Middle High German stoc, from Old High German stoc, from Proto-West Germanic *stokk, from Proto-Germanic *stukkaz.^[1]

Cognate with German Stock and Luxembourgish Stack.

• IPA^(key): /ʃtok/
• Rhymes: -ok
• Hyphenation: Stock

Stock m (plural Steck, diminutive Steckche)

1. stick (any long, thin piece of wood)
2. bush, shrub
3. tree trunk

   Synonym: Stamm

4. (in compounds) plant

   Banannestock ― banana plant

Stock m (plural Steck)

1. floor (storey of a building)

   Ich wohne im zehnte Stock.

   I live on the tenth floor.