caliber vs grade

caliber

noun
  • Relative size, importance, magnitude. 

  • A nominal name for a cartridge type, which may not exactly indicate its true size and may include other measurements such as cartridge length or black powder capacity. Eg 7.62×39 or 38.40. 

  • The diameter of round or cylindrical body, as of a bullet, a projectile, or a column. 

  • Diameter of the bore of a firearm, typically measured between opposite lands. 

  • Capacity or compass of mind. 

  • Unit of measure used to express the length of the bore of a weapon. The number of calibres is determined by dividing the length of the bore of the weapon, from the breech face of the tube to the muzzle, by the diameter of its bore. A gun tube the bore of which is 40 feet (480 inches) long and 12 inches in diameter is said to be 40 calibers long. 

  • Movement of a timepiece. 

grade

noun
  • A degree or level of something; a position within a scale; a degree of quality. 

  • A slope (up or down) of a roadway or other passage 

  • Performance on a test or other evaluation(s), expressed by a number, letter, or other symbol; a score. 

  • An area that has been flattened by a grader (construction machine). 

  • In a linear system of divisors on an n-dimensional variety, the number of free intersection points of n generic divisors. 

  • A harsh scraping or cutting; a grating. 

  • A rating. 

  • A taxon united by a level of morphological or physiological complexity that is not a clade. 

  • A level of primary and secondary education. 

  • A gradian. 

  • An eyeglass prescription. 

  • The degree of malignity of a tumor expressed on a scale. 

  • Degree (any of the three stages (positive, comparative, superlative) in the comparison of an adjective or an adverb). 

  • The level of the ground. 

  • A student of a particular grade (used with the grade level). 

verb
  • To describe, modify or inflect so as to classify as to degree. 

  • To pass imperceptibly from one grade into another. 

  • To pass from one school grade into the next. 

  • To assign scores to the components of an academic test, or to overall academic performance. 

  • To flatten, level, or smooth a large surface, especially with a grader. 

  • To remove or trim part of a seam allowance from a finished seam so as to reduce bulk and make the finished piece more even when turned right side out. 

  • To apply classifying labels to data (typically by a manual rather than automatic process). 

  • To organize in grades. 

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