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📦 To remove a pile 📊 To widen data 🖥️ To remove from stack
to unstack

to unstack

1 4.2
To take items off a stack so they are not on top of each other
  • verb
  • /ʌnˈstækt/
translation icon : desapilar
  • Jerry and Dorothy prepare for the Tidwells, cleaning up the cramped office, unstacking chairs, and making room.

Now you're not having to both be here trying to unstack and stack.

Examples

  • It took only a few minutes to move the shrouded can across the room, slide the tank as gently as possible onto the floor, and unstack the cans of nutrient fluid that Potter had brought along.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Now you're not having to both be here trying to unstack and stack.

    Ryan Pineda

  • I'm not sure what he's thinking as he unstacks each bucket and carries it where he wants it, but he definitely has a purpose.

    Blog text (20)

  • In the living room, Mei unstacks the jigsaw puzzles from their special toy box and watches as Anna works on the newest addition, a fifty-piece farm scene brightly painted in naive style.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • I need you to unstack the boxes to find the one I need.

  • The workers will unstack the pallets to make space in the warehouse.

  • After the event, we had to unstack the chairs and put them away.

Synonyms

to unstow
vsto unstack
1 8.1

To take something out of where it is kept

removes items specifically from a piled arrangement rather than general storage

Antonyms

to stack
138 1.6

To put things in a neat pile one on top of another

Surface Forms

unstack infinitive
unstacked past
unstacked past participle
unstacking present participle
unstacks third person singular

Morphology

unstack = stack (transparent) = un + stack

The negative/reversive prefix 'un-' combines with the verb 'stack' to mean 'remove from a stack', which is directly derivable by learners.

Etymology

Unstack comes from the prefix un- meaning 'remove' or 'do the opposite of' and the word stack meaning 'a pile'. So, to unstack something is to take items out of a pile so they are no longer on top of each other.