stockpile

/ˌstɑkˈpaɪl/

/ˈstɒkpaɪl/

Other forms: stockpiles; stockpiled

A stockpile is a large amount of something that you save for later. If you're worried about running out of your favorite flavor of bubble gum, you might decide to keep a stockpile of it.

If you hear the word stockpile on the news, it's probably referring to weapons which are accumulated and saved by a country that might need to use them some day in the future. You can use stockpile to describe the actual cache of weapons and also as a verb, to describe the act of storing them. The word was originally a mining term that literally described a pile of ore. During World War II, stockpile became a more general term.

Definitions of stockpile

1. noun

   something kept back or saved for future use or a special purpose
   synonyms: backlog, reserve

   types:

   bank

   a supply or stock held in reserve for future use (especially in emergencies)

   fuel level

   the amount of fuel remaining

   reserve account, reserve fund

   funds taken out of earnings to provide for anticipated future payments

   blood bank

   a place for storing whole blood or blood plasma

   eye bank

   a place for storing and preserving corneas that are obtained from human corpses immediately after death; used for corneal transplantation to patients with corneal defects

   food bank

   a place where food is contributed and made available to those in need

   soil bank

   land retired from crop cultivation and planted with soil-building crops; government subsidies are paid to farmers for their retired land

   hidden reserve

   reserves that do not show up on the balance sheet (as by understating values)

   pool

   any communal combination of funds

   allowance, allowance account, valuation account, valuation reserve

   a reserve fund created by a charge against profits in order to provide for changes in the value of a company's assets

   type of:

   accumulation

   (finance) profits that are not paid out as dividends but are added to the capital base of the corporation
2. noun

   a storage pile accumulated for future use
   type of:

   agglomerate, cumulation, cumulus, heap, mound, pile

   a collection of objects laid on top of each other
3. verb

   have on hand
   synonyms: carry, stock

   type of:

   have, have got, hold

   have or possess, either in a concrete or an abstract sense