calamus vs vane

calamus

noun
  • A quill; the hard, horny, hollow, and more or less transparent part of the stem or scape of a feather. 

  • Synonym of fistula (“tube for sucking Eucharist wine”) 

  • A palm in genus Calamus, of rattan palms. 

  • The sweet flag, Acorus calamus. 

  • A fish of genus Calamus in family Sparidae; certain porgies. 

vane

noun
  • The flattened, web-like part of a feather, consisting of a series of barbs on either side of the shaft. 

  • Any of several usually relatively thin, rigid, flat, or sometimes curved surfaces radially mounted along an axis, as a blade in a turbine or a sail on a windmill, that is turned by or used to turn a fluid. 

  • A sight on a sextant or compass. 

  • One of the metal guidance or stabilizing fins attached to the tail of a bomb or other missile. 

  • A weather vane. 

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