stack up

1. Measure up, equal, as in Their gift doesn't stack up against mine . This usage alludes to piling up one's chips at poker, and comparing them to those of the other players. [Early 1900s]

2. Make sense, seem plausible, as in Her explanation just doesn't stack up . Also see add up , def. 2.

Example Sentences

“Apparently they had a lot of people stacked up over the airport waiting to get their money,” says Auwaerter.

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The company stacked up its wafer-scale engines 16-fold, thereby reducing a data center to a small box with 64 trillion transistors.

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“More and more people are hitting the wall. There’s less and less help now,” he said, adding that challenges continue to stack up.

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But its rock lies much deeper, at up to 19,000 feet, which is equivalent to stacking up 13 Empire State Buildings.

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Plus, Apple doesn’t give traditional quantitative forecasts for future quarters, instead offering general guidance about how revenue performance for the overall company or certain segments could stack up relative to past quarters.

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Related Words

• accelerate 
• advance 
• ascend 
• build 
• climb 
• double 
• expand 
• go up 
• improve 
• lift 
• move up 
• multiply 
• pick up 
• raise 
• soar 
• swell