crib vs wire

crib

noun
  • The card game cribbage. 

  • A small room or covered structure, especially one of rough construction, used for storage or penning animals. 

  • A collection of quotes or references for use in speaking, for assembling a written document, or as an aid to a project of some sort; a crib sheet. 

  • A literal translation, usually of a work originally in Latin or Ancient Greek. 

  • A bed for a child older than a baby. 

  • One’s residence, house or dwelling place, or usual place of resort. 

  • A bin for drying or storing grain, as with a corn crib. 

  • A manger, a feeding trough for animals elevated off the earth or floor, especially one for fodder such as hay. 

  • A wicker basket. 

  • A hovel, a roughly constructed building best suited to the shelter of animals but used for human habitation. 

  • A small holiday home, often near a beach and of simple construction. 

  • A small raft made of timber. 

  • A baby’s bed with high, often slatted, often moveable sides, suitable for a child who has outgrown a cradle or bassinet. 

  • A snack or packed lunch, especially as taken to work to eat during a break. 

  • A confined space, as with a cage or office-cubicle 

  • A small sleeping berth in a packet ship or other small vessel 

  • The cards discarded by players and used by the dealer. 

  • A boxy structure traditionally built of heavy wooden timbers, to support an existing structure from below, as with a mineshaft or a building being raised off its foundation in preparation for being moved; see cribbing. 

  • The baby Jesus and the manger in a creche or nativity scene, consisting of statues of Mary, Joseph and various other characters such as the magi. 

  • A known piece of information corresponding to a section of encrypted text, that is then used to work out the remaining sections. 

  • A cheat sheet or past test used by students; crib sheet. 

verb
  • To crowd together, or to be confined, as if in a crib or in narrow accommodations. 

  • To seize the manger or other solid object with the teeth and draw in wind. 

  • To place or confine in a crib. 

  • To shut up or confine in a narrow habitation; to cage; to cramp. 

  • To plagiarize; to copy; to cheat. 

  • To collect one or more passages and/or references for use in a speech, written document or as an aid for some task; to create a crib sheet. 

  • To complain, to grumble 

  • To install timber supports, as with cribbing. 

wire

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

  • 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. 

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

  • To equip with wires for use with electricity. 

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