beak vs slug

beak

verb
  • Strike with the beak. 

  • To play truant. 

  • Seize with the beak. 

noun
  • Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Libythea, notable for the beak-like elongation on their heads. 

  • A schoolmaster (originally, at Eton). 

  • The human nose, especially one that is large and pointed. 

  • That part of a ship, before the forecastle, which is fastened to the stem, and supported by the main knee. 

  • A rigid structure projecting from the front of a bird's face, used for pecking, grooming, foraging, carrying items, eating food, etc. 

  • A similar structure forming the jaws of an octopus, turtle, etc. 

  • A justice of the peace; a magistrate. 

  • The upper or projecting part of the shell, near the hinge of a bivalve. 

  • The prolongation of certain univalve shells containing the canal. 

  • The long projecting sucking mouth of some insects and other invertebrates, as in the Hemiptera. 

  • A toe clip. 

  • A beam, shod or armed at the end with a metal head or point, and projecting from the prow of an ancient galley, used as a ram to pierce the vessel of an enemy; a beakhead. 

  • cocaine. 

  • Any process somewhat like the beak of a bird, terminating the fruit or other parts of a plant. 

  • Anything projecting or ending in a point like a beak, such as a promontory of land. 

  • A continuous slight projection ending in an arris or narrow fillet; that part of a drip from which the water is thrown off. 

slug

verb
  • To hit very hard, usually with the fist. 

  • To drink quickly; to gulp; to down. 

  • To take part in casual carpooling; to form ad hoc, informal carpools for commuting, essentially a variation of ride-share commuting and hitchhiking. 

  • To make sluggish. 

  • To become reduced in diameter, or changed in shape, by passing from a larger to a smaller part of the bore of the barrel. 

  • To load with a slug or slugs. 

noun
  • A title, name or header, a catchline, a short phrase or title to indicate the content of a newspaper or magazine story for editing use. 

  • A bullet or other projectile fired from a firearm; in modern usage, generally refers to a shotgun slug. 

  • The last part of a clean URL, the displayed resource name, similar to a filename. 

  • A hard blow, usually with the fist. 

  • A black screen. 

  • A motile pseudoplasmodium formed by amoebae working together. 

  • A piece of type metal imprinted by a linotype machine; also a black mark placed in the margin to indicate an error; also said in application to typewriters; type slug. 

  • A ship that sails slowly. 

  • The imperial (English) unit of mass that accelerates by 1 foot per second squared (1 ft/s²) when a force of one pound-force (lbf) is exerted on it. 

  • A solid block or piece of roughly shaped metal. 

  • Any of many terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks, having no (or only a rudimentary) shell. 

  • An accessory to a diesel-electric locomotive, used to increase adhesive weight and allow full power to be applied at a lower speed. It has trucks with traction motors, but lacks a prime mover, being powered by electricity from the mother locomotive, and may or may not have a control cab. 

  • A stranger picked up as a passenger to enable legal use of high occupancy vehicle lanes. 

  • A hitchhiking commuter. 

  • A counterfeit coin, especially one used to steal from vending machines. 

  • A discrete mass of a material that moves as a unit, usually through another material. 

  • A shot of a drink, usually alcoholic. 

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