stack overflow

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

stack overflow

   <programming> An error condition which results from attempting
   to {push} more items onto a {stack} than space has been
   allocated for.  Often, this will simply overwrite the adjacent
   memory locations causing hard-to-trace {bugs}.

   Stack overflow can result, for example, from an insufficient
   number of stack frames to handle hardware {interrupts}.

   (1995-03-21)