stash
Americanverb (used with object)
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stashes,
present (3rd person singular)
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stashed,
past participle, past
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stashing
present participle
noun
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stashes
plural
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something put away or hidden.
a stash of gold coins buried in the garden.
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a place in which something is stored secretly; hiding place; cache.
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Slang. a supply of hidden drugs.
verb
noun
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informal a secret store or the place where this is hidden
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slang drugs kept for personal consumption
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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stashsimple
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stashessimple
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have stashedperfect
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has stashedperfect
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am stashingprogressive
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are stashingprogressive
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is stashingprogressive
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have been stashingperfect progressive
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has been stashingperfect progressive
Past
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stashedsimple
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had stashedperfect
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was stashingprogressive
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were stashingprogressive
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had been stashingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of stash
Explanation
When you stash something, you stow it away to use it later. Your little brother might stash his Halloween candy under his bed, for example. Use the word stash as a verb that means "hoard" or "stockpile," or as a noun — a pirate's secret pile of gold doubloons can be called a stash, and so can the collection of overdue library books you've got piled beside your bed. The verb version of stash was originally a late 1700's criminals' slang word meaning "conceal." It may have come from a combination of stow and cache.
Vocabulary lists containing stash
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The stash has been kept much as it was found.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
He has made that count, with a hat-trick among his stash of pre-season goals.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
One ballerina selected from her stash a leotard whose gray velour later read as metallic silver under the studio lights during her grand adagio.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
“It’s holding back PC builds and smartphone builds. Cloud customers are paying premiums,” and presumably not to stash memory components in warehouses, he noted.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026
Once Millie is sure her parents are asleep, we head to the TV room and watch a few videos of former pageants that I stole from my mom’s stash.
From "Dumplin'" by Julie Murphy
Another giveaway water voles are present are small food stashes and nibbled plants.
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2026
Car factories ground to a halt, and defense manufacturers scoured the world for hidden stashes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
And according to recent data, central banks’ gold stashes have topped their holdings of Treasuries, $36.8 trillion versus $31.6 trillion.
From Barron's ● Jan. 23, 2026
No gold stashes or governmental cryptocurrency reserves would save us.
From Slate ● Apr. 11, 2025
Papa reaches into the pocket of his woolen suit jacket, where he stashes sesame sweets and hard candies, and pulls out some for all of us.
From "Across So Many Seas" by Ruth Behar
After a tipoff, intelligence services and police found two handguns and ammunition stashed in a hideout in the forest, Dobrindt said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026
The gold was stashed in a bag under the stone cellar surface below the 1890s villa built for the brewery’s onetime owner, Theophilus Van Assche, said local police officer Katrijn Braem.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
Extras should be stashed in the freezer and typically last up to four months.
From Salon ● Jun. 29, 2026
Straight away we’re suspicious that Carney and co-screenwriter Peter McDonald stashed this story in a drawer ages ago and didn’t bother to dust it off.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2026
She felt unusually clumsy, and missed the old shin-length tunic stashed in her bag.
From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray
Every week or so, I stock up on a “bunch” of ripe bananas, stashing them alongside the apples and oranges in my fruit bowl, only to forget about their existence within a few short days.
From Salon ● Jun. 20, 2026
At Navy Federal, Long is already seeing members stashing more money in checking accounts in preparation for covering costs.
From MarketWatch ● May 12, 2026
That approach is increasingly common, with investors stashing money away through inflation, tariff turmoil and economic worries, said Michael Shamrell, vice president of workplace thought leadership at Fidelity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 8, 2025
When he’s stashing the stolen paintings later in a farmhouse’s hayloft and accidentally knocks the ladder out from under him, the moment is amusing and appropriately metaphorical.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2025
"And he's stashing it in a freezer inside the shed."
From "Scream for Ice Cream: Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew, #2" by Carolyn Keene
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
