unwind the stack
During the execution of a procedural language, one is said to "unwind the stack" from a called procedure up to a caller when one discards the stack frame and any number of frames above it, popping back up to the level of the given caller. In C this is done with "longjmp"/"setjmp", in Lisp with "throw/catch". See also smash the stack.
[The Jargon File]