break vs cover

break

verb
  • To win a game (against one's opponent) as receiver. 

  • To go down, in terms of temperature, indicating that the most dangerous part of the illness has passed. 

  • To become deeper at puberty. 

  • To terminate the execution of a program before normal completion. 

  • To become weakened in constitution or faculties; to lose health or strength. 

  • To interrupt or cease one's work or occupation temporarily; to go on break. 

  • To make an abrupt or sudden change; to change gait. 

  • To demote; to reduce the military rank of. 

  • To counter-attack. 

  • To burst forth; to make its way; to come into view. 

  • To open (a safe) without using the correct key, combination, or the like. 

  • To become audible suddenly. 

  • To interrupt; to destroy the continuity of; to dissolve or terminate. 

  • To be crushed, or overwhelmed with sorrow or grief. 

  • To turn an animal into a beast of burden. 

  • Of prices on the stock exchange: to fall suddenly. 

  • To cause the shell of (an egg) to crack, so that the inside (yolk) is accessible. 

  • To cause (a barrier) to no longer bar. 

  • To ruin financially. 

  • To disclose or make known an item of news, a band, etc. 

  • To change a steady state abruptly. 

  • To surpass or do better than (a specific number); to do better than (a record), setting a new record. 

  • To destroy the official character and standing of; to cashier; to dismiss. 

  • To end the run of (a play). 

  • To render (a game) unchallenging by altering its rules or exploiting loopholes or weaknesses in them in a way that gives a player an unfair advantage. 

  • To cause (some feature of a program or piece of software) to stop functioning properly; to cause a regression. 

  • To destroy the arrangement of; to throw into disorder; to pierce. 

  • To (attempt to) disengage and flee to; to make a run for. 

  • To begin or end. 

  • To suddenly become. 

  • To make the first shot; to scatter the balls from the initial neat arrangement. 

  • To demulsify. 

  • To end (a connection); to disconnect. 

  • To destroy the strength, firmness, or consistency of. 

  • To divide (something, often money) into smaller units. 

  • To arrive. 

  • To cause (a person or animal) to lose spirit or will; to crush the spirits of. 

  • To interrupt (a fall) by inserting something so that the falling object does not (immediately) hit something else beneath. 

  • To separate into two or more pieces, to fracture or crack, by a process that cannot easily be reversed for reassembly. 

  • To crack or fracture (bone) under a physical strain. 

  • To stop, or to cause to stop, functioning properly or altogether. 

  • To alter in type due to emotion or strain: in men, generally to go up, in women, sometimes to go down; to crack. 

  • To collapse into surf, after arriving in shallow water. 

  • To end. 

  • To remove one of the two men on (a point). 

  • To suspend the execution of a program during debugging so that the state of the program can be investigated. 

  • To violate; to fail to adhere to. 

  • To cause, or allow the occurrence of, a line break. 

  • To B-boy; to breakdance. 

noun
  • The transition area between a singer's vocal registers; the passaggio. 

  • A significant change in circumstance, attitude, perception, or focus of attention. 

  • An interval or intermission between two parts of a performance, for example a theatre show, broadcast, or sports game. 

  • A place where waves break (that is, where waves pitch or spill forward creating white water). 

  • A sharp bit or snaffle. 

  • The number of points scored by one player in one visit to the table. 

  • An area along a river that features steep banks, bluffs, or gorges (e.g., Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, US). 

  • A section of extended repetition of the percussion break to a song, created by a hip-hop DJ as rhythmic dance music. 

  • A temporary split with a romantic partner. 

  • The point in the musical scale at which a woodwind instrument is designed to overblow, that is, to move from its lower to its upper register. 

  • A change, particularly the end of a spell of persistent good or bad weather. 

  • A keystroke or other signal that causes a program to terminate or suspend execution. 

  • A scheduled interval of days or weeks between periods of school instruction; a holiday. 

  • A rest or pause, usually from work. 

  • The counter-attack. 

  • A short holiday. 

  • An instance of breaking something into two or more pieces. 

  • A physical space that opens up in something or between two things. 

  • A sudden fall in prices on the stock exchange. 

  • The beginning (of the morning). 

  • A game won by the receiving player(s). 

  • An act of escaping. 

  • The first shot in a game of billiards. 

  • The curve imparted to the ball's motion on the green due to slope or grass texture. 

  • A time for students to talk or play between lessons. 

  • The separation between lines, paragraphs or pages of a written text. 

  • The start of a horse race. 

  • A short section of music, often between verses, in which some performers stop while others continue. 

cover

verb
  • To defend (mark) a particular player or area. 

  • To make a cover version of (a song that was originally recorded by another artist). 

  • To discuss thoroughly; to provide coverage of. 

  • To set upon all of, so as to completely conceal. 

  • To be upon all of, so as to completely conceal. 

  • To provide insurance coverage for. 

  • To traverse or put behind a certain distance. 

  • To act as a replacement. 

  • To deal with or include someone or something. 

  • To be enough money for. 

  • To invest (oneself with something); to bring upon (oneself). 

  • To have as an assignment or responsibility. 

  • To protect using an aimed firearm and the threat of firing; or to protect using continuous, heaving fire at or in the direction of the enemy so as to force the enemy to remain in cover; or to threaten using an aimed firearm. 

  • To be over or upon, as to conceal or protect. 

  • To place something over or upon, as to conceal or protect. 

  • To extend over a given period of time or range, to occupy, to stretch over a given area. 

  • To copulate with (said of certain male animals such as dogs and horses). 

  • To protect or control (a piece or square). 

adj
  • Of, pertaining to, or consisting of cover versions. 

  • Of or pertaining to the front cover of a book or magazine. 

noun
  • The top sheet of a bed. 

  • A persona maintained by a spy or undercover operative; cover story. 

  • The front and back of a book, magazine, CD package, etc. 

  • A cloth or similar material, often fitted, placed over an item such as a car or sofa or food to protect it from dust, rain, insects, etc. when not being used. 

  • A collection (or family) of subsets of a given set, whose union contains every element of said original set. 

  • Area or situation which screens a person or thing from view. 

  • An envelope complete with stamps and postmarks etc. 

  • A solid object, including terrain, that provides protection from enemy fire. 

  • The portion of a slate, tile, or shingle that is hidden by the overlap of the course above. 

  • An insurance contract; coverage by an insurance contract. 

  • A setting at a restaurant table or formal dinner. 

  • A new performance or rerecording of a previously recorded song; a cover version; a cover song. 

  • The distance between reinforcing steel and the exterior of concrete. 

  • A fielding position on the off side, between point and mid off, about 30° forward of square; a fielder in this position. 

  • A cover charge. 

  • In a steam engine, the lap of a slide valve. 

  • A lid. 

  • In commercial law, a buyer’s purchase on the open market of goods similar or identical to the goods contracted for after a seller has breached a contract of sale by failure to deliver the goods contracted for. 

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