bait vs blank

bait

adj
  • Obvious; blatant. 

  • Well-known; famous; renowned. 

noun
  • Food containing poison or a harmful additive to kill animals that are pests. 

  • A light or hasty luncheon. 

  • A packed lunch. 

  • A post intended to get a rise out of others. 

  • Anything which allures; something used to lure or entice someone or something into doing something 

  • A small meal taken mid-morning while farming. 

  • Any substance, especially food, used in catching fish, or other animals, by alluring them to a hook, snare, trap, or net. 

  • A portion of food or drink, as a refreshment taken on a journey; also, a stop for rest and refreshment. 

  • A miner's packed meal. 

verb
  • To intentionally annoy, torment, or threaten by constant rebukes or threats; to harass. 

  • (of a person) To stop to take a portion of food and drink for refreshment during a journey. 

  • To attract with bait; to entice. 

  • (of a horse or other animal) To take food, especially during a journey. 

  • To set dogs on (an animal etc.) to bite or worry; to attack with dogs, especially for sport. 

  • To affix bait to a trap or a fishing hook or fishing line. 

blank

adj
  • Absolute; downright; sheer. 

  • Lacking characteristics which give variety; uniform. 

  • Free from writing, printing, or marks; having an empty space to be filled in 

  • Utterly confounded or discomfited. 

  • Empty; void; without result; fruitless. 

  • Devoid of thoughts, memory, or inspiration. 

  • Of ammunition: having propellant but no bullets; unbulleted. 

  • Without expression, usually due to incomprehension. 

verb
  • To make void; to erase. 

  • To ignore (a person) deliberately. 

  • To prevent from scoring; for example, in a sporting event. 

  • To become blank. 

  • To be temporarily unable to remember. 

  • To render ineffective by blanketing with turbulent airflow, such as from aircraft wake or reverse thrust. 

noun
  • Infertile semen. 

  • A vacant space, place, or period; a void [since the 17th century]. 

  • A dash written in place of an omitted letter or word 

  • Blank verse . 

  • Provisional words printed in italics (instead of blank spaces) in a bill before Parliament, being matters of practical detail, of which the final form will be settled in Committee . 

  • A domino without points on one or both of its divisions. 

  • An empty form without substance; anything insignificant; nothing at all . 

  • A lot by which nothing is gained; a ticket in a lottery on which no prize is indicated [since the 16th century]. 

  • A space to be filled in on a form or template. 

  • A document, paper, or form with spaces left blank to be filled up at the pleasure of the person to whom it is given (e.g. a blank charter, ballot, form, contract, etc.), or as the event may determine; a blank form . 

  • The white spot in the centre of a target; hence (figuratively) the object to which anything is directed or aimed, the range of such aim . 

  • An unprinted leaf of a book [20th century]. 

  • The ¹ / ₂₃₀₄₀₀ of a grain [17th century]. 

  • Any article of glass on which subsequent processing is required [since the 19th century]. 

  • An empty space in one's memory; a forgotten item or memory [since the 18th century]. 

  • The shaved wax ready for placing on a recording machine for making wax records with a stylus [20th century]. 

  • The space character; the character resulting from pressing the space-bar on a keyboard. 

  • A sample for a control experiment that does not contain any of the analyte of interest, in order to deliberately produce a non-detection to verify that a detection is distinguishable from it. 

How often have the words bait and blank occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )