contact vs wire

contact

verb
  • To establish communication with something or someone. 

  • To touch; to come into physical contact with. 

noun
  • The act of touching physically; being in close association. 

  • The situation of being within sight of something; visual contact. 

  • The establishment of communication (with). 

  • A contact lens. 

  • The plane between two adjacent bodies of dissimilar rock. 

  • A device designed for repetitive connections. 

  • Contact juggling. 

  • A nodule designed to connect a device with something else. 

  • Someone who can be contacted, or with whom one is in communication. 

wire

verb
  • To connect, involve or embed (something) deeply or intimately into (something else, such as an organization or political scene), so that it is plugged in (to that thing) (“keeping up with current information about (the thing)”) or has insinuated itself into (the thing). 

  • To send a message or monetary funds to another person through a telecommunications system, formerly predominantly by telegraph. 

  • To place (a ball) so that the wire of a wicket prevents a successful shot. 

  • To fasten with wire, especially with reference to wine bottles, corks, or fencing. 

  • To set or predetermine (someone's personality or behaviour, or an organization's culture) in a particular way. 

  • To string on a wire. 

  • To add (something) into a system (especially an electrical system) by means of wiring. 

  • To snare by means of a wire or wires. 

  • To install eavesdropping equipment. 

  • To make someone tense or psyched up. See also adjective wired. 

  • To add or connect (something) into a system as if with wires (for example, with nerves). 

  • To equip with wires for use with electricity. 

noun
  • Any of the system of wires used to operate the puppets in a puppet show; hence, the network of hidden influences controlling the action of a person or organization; strings. 

  • A piece of such material; a thread or slender rod of metal, a cable. 

  • A knitting needle. 

  • Metal formed into a thin, even thread, now usually by being drawn through a hole in a steel die. 

  • A telecommunication wire or cable. 

  • An electric telegraph; a telegram. 

  • A hidden listening device on the person of an undercover operative for the purposes of obtaining incriminating spoken evidence. 

  • A fence made of usually barbed wire. 

  • A deadline or critical endpoint. 

  • A metal conductor that carries electricity. 

  • A finish line of a racetrack. 

  • A wire strung with beads and hung horizontally above or near the table which is used to keep score. 

  • The slender shaft of the plumage of certain birds. 

  • A covert signal sent between people cheating in a card game. 

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