bulwark vs slab

bulwark

noun
  • The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard. 

  • A defensive wall or rampart. 

  • A defense or safeguard. 

  • A breakwater. 

  • Any means of defence or security. 

verb
  • To fortify something with a wall or rampart. 

  • To provide protection of defense for something. 

slab

noun
  • The slack part of a sail. 

  • A poured-concrete foundation for a building. 

  • A car that has been modified with equipment such as loudspeakers, lights, special paint, hydraulics, and other accessories. 

  • A large, flat piece of solid material; a solid object that is large and flat. 

  • A very large wave. 

  • A paving stone; a flagstone. 

  • A large, luxury pre-1980 General Motors vehicle, particularly a Buick, Oldsmobile, or Cadillac. 

  • The amount by which a cache can grow or shrink, used in memory allocation. 

  • An outside piece taken from a log or timber when sawing it into boards, planks, etc. 

  • A sequence of 12 adjacent bits, serving as a byte in some computers. 

  • A carton containing 24 cans (chiefly of beer). 

  • Part of a tectonic plate that is being, or has been, subducted. 

verb
  • To make something into a slab. 

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