bait vs fish

bait

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

  • 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. 

adj
  • Well-known; famous; renowned. 

  • Obvious; blatant. 

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. 

fish

verb
  • To use as bait when fishing. 

  • To repair (a spar or mast) by fastening a beam or other long object (often called a fish) over the damaged part (see Noun above). 

  • To hoist the flukes of. 

  • To search (a body of water) for something other than fish. 

  • To talk to people in an attempt to get them to say something, or seek to obtain something by artifice. 

  • To (attempt to) find or get hold of an object by searching among other objects. 

  • Of a batsman, to attempt to hit a ball outside off stump and miss it. 

  • To hunt fish or other aquatic animals in a body of water. 

noun
  • A makeshift overlapping longitudinal brace, originally shaped roughly like a fish, used to temporarily repair or extend a spar or mast of a ship. 

  • A bad poker player. Compare shark (a good poker player). 

  • A woman. 

  • The thirty-fourth Lenormand card. 

  • A new (usually vulnerable) prisoner. 

  • A male homosexual; a gay man. 

  • An easy victim for swindling. 

  • A torpedo (self-propelled explosive device). 

  • Superclass Osteichthyes, bony fish. 

  • Class Myxini, the hagfish (no vertebra) 

  • A cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills. 

  • A purchase used to fish the anchor. 

  • The flesh of the fish used as food. 

  • Class Petromyzontida, the lampreys (no jaw) 

  • Cod; codfish. 

  • Class Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous fish such as sharks and rays 

  • A period of time spent fishing. 

  • A card game in which the object is to obtain cards in pairs or sets of four (depending on the variation), by asking the other players for cards of a particular rank. 

  • An instance of seeking something. 

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