clutch vs knot

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 

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. 

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

knot

noun
  • A group of people or things. 

  • A maze-like pattern. 

  • A looping of a piece of string or of any other long, flexible material that cannot be untangled without passing one or both ends of the material through its loops. 

  • A tangled clump. 

  • Any knob, lump, swelling, or protuberance. 

  • A kind of epaulet; a shoulder knot. 

  • One of a variety of shore birds; red-breasted sandpiper (variously Calidris canutus or Tringa canutus). 

  • A bond of union; a connection; a tie. 

  • A non-self-intersecting closed curve in (e.g., three-dimensional) space that is an abstraction of a knot (in sense 1 above). 

  • A unit of speed, equal to one nautical mile per hour. (From the practice of counting the number of knots in the log-line (as it is paid out) in a standard time. Traditionally spaced at one every ¹⁄₁₂₀ of a mile.) 

  • Local swelling in a tissue area, especially skin, often due to injury. 

  • The bulbus glandis. 

  • The whorl left in lumber by the base of a branch growing out of the tree's trunk. 

  • A difficult situation. 

  • A tightened and contracted part of a muscle that feels like a hard lump under the skin. 

  • A node. 

  • A unit of indicated airspeed, calibrated airspeed, or equivalent airspeed, which varies in its relation to the unit of speed so as to compensate for the effects of different ambient atmospheric conditions on aircraft performance. 

  • In omegaverse fiction, a bulbus glandis-like structure on the penis of a male alpha, which ties him to an omega during intercourse. 

  • A nautical mile. 

  • The point on which the action of a story depends; the gist of a matter. 

  • A protuberant joint in a plant. 

  • The swelling of the bulbus glandis in members of the dog family, Canidae. 

verb
  • To form knots. 

  • To form into a knot; to tie with a knot or knots. 

  • To knit knots for a fringe. 

  • To unite closely; to knit together. 

  • To form wrinkles in the forehead, as a sign of concentration, concern, surprise, etc. 

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