Stocktakes

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. Physical counts of the goods a business holds in stock ; careful reviews that take stock of where a situation or project currently stands
2. Inventories that tally the items on hand in a store or warehouse ; thorough appraisals made to evaluate the present state of affairs
3. Systematic counts of merchandise kept by a company ; comprehensive reviews that size up the current position of an enterprise or undertaking

Etymology: "Stocktakes" is the plural of "stocktake", a noun for the counting of goods held in a business at a given time. The word is a plain compound of "stock", in the sense of goods or merchandise kept for sale, and "take", in the sense of taking an inventory or account. Its literal picture is of a trader physically taking the stock: walking the shelves and recording what remains. The noun and the verb "to stocktake" follow the same pattern, so a shop that counts its goods at the end of the year is said to be doing a stocktake, and the plural names several such counts, perhaps one per branch or per quarter. Because the compound is transparent, its meaning has changed little from its component parts, which is why it reads so directly.

Synonyms: inventory, stock count