stack up

verb

stacked up; stacking up; stacks up

intransitive verb

1

: to add up

Cars were beginning to stack up behind the bus.

2

: to be in a particular state or situation

Here's how things stack up today.

3

: measure up, compare

—usually used with against

How does he stack up against the other job candidates?

Synonyms of stack up

• compare (with)
• measure up (to)

Examples of stack up in a Sentence

those newspapers have been stacking up in the basement since we moved here

Recent Examples on the Web

Outside the Fun Zone, black sandbags were stacked up along the peninsula’s vast network of seawalls, giving them a few more inches of protection from the rising tide. — Fedor Zarkhin, Los Angeles Times, 27 Oct. 2026

And Clark, who has spent years honing her skills on Lake Erie, can't wait to see how her own fishing knowledge stacks up. — Amber Harding Outkick, FOXNews.com, 27 Oct. 2026

The bodies start to stack up, and the duo is bonded by trauma in some weird ways. — K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 26 Oct. 2026

Further up the mountains, several inches of snow are expected to begin stacking up across the Sierra above 8,000 feet, with the highest amounts between 3 to 6 inches. — Sean MacAday, Sacbee.com, 21 Oct. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1896, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for stack up

• backup
• blowup
• breakup
• buildup
• checkup
• cleanup
• holdup
• hookup
• lineup
• lockup
• makeup
• markup

Kids Definition

stack up

verb

: measure up sense 2, compare

see how you stack up against the champion