clutch vs gather

clutch

noun
  • A group or bunch (of people or things). 

  • The claw of a predatory animal or bird. 

  • An important or critical situation. 

  • A brood of chickens or a sitting of eggs. 

  • A device to interrupt power transmission, commonly used to separate the engine and gearbox in a car. 

  • A fastener that attaches to the back of a tack pin to secure an accessory to clothing. (See Clutch (pin fastener).) 

  • A small handbag or purse with no straps or handle. 

  • Any device for gripping an object, as at the end of a chain or tackle. 

  • A grip, especially one seen as rapacious or evil. 

  • The pedal in a car that disengages power and torque transmission from the engine (through the drivetrain) to the drive wheels. 

  • A difficult maneuver 

adj
  • Performing or tending to perform well in difficult, high-pressure situations. 

verb
  • To unexpectedly or luckily succeed in a difficult activity. 

  • To hatch. 

  • To seize, as though with claws. 

  • To grip or grasp tightly. 

  • To win in a 1vX (one versus X) situation. 

gather

noun
  • A gathering. 

  • The soffit or under surface of the masonry required in gathering. See gather (transitive verb). 

  • The inclination forward of the axle journals to keep the wheels from working outward. 

  • A blob of molten glass collected on the end of a blowpipe. 

  • A plait or fold in cloth, made by drawing a thread through it; a pucker. 

verb
  • To grow gradually larger by accretion. 

  • To bring stitches closer together. 

  • To collect molten glass on the end of a tool. 

  • To accumulate over time, to amass little by little. 

  • To haul in; to take up. 

  • To infer or conclude; to know from a different source. 

  • To congregate, or assemble. 

  • Especially, to harvest food. 

  • To collect; normally separate things. 

  • To bring parts of a whole closer. 

  • To gain; to win. 

  • To be filled with pus 

  • To add pleats or folds to a piece of cloth, normally to reduce its width. 

  • To bring together, or nearer together, in masonry, as for example where the width of a fireplace is rapidly diminished to the width of the flue. 

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