cradle vs cricket

cradle

noun
  • A case for a broken or dislocated limb. 

  • A frame to keep the bedclothes from contact with the sensitive parts of an injured person. 

  • Infancy, or very early life. 

  • A framework of timbers, or iron bars, moving upon ways or rollers, used to support, lift, or carry ships or other vessels, heavy guns, etc., as up an inclined plane, or across a strip of land, or in launching a ship. 

  • A machine on rockers, used in washing out auriferous earth. 

  • A bed or cot for a baby, oscillating on rockers or swinging on pivots. 

  • A hand position allowing a contact ball to be held steadily on the back of the hand. 

  • The place of origin, or in which anything is nurtured or protected in the earlier period of existence. 

  • A ribbing for vaulted ceilings and arches intended to be covered with plaster. 

  • A tool used in mezzotint engraving, which, by a rocking motion, raises burrs on the surface of the plate, so preparing the ground. 

  • A rest for the receiver of a telephone, or for certain computer hardware. 

  • A mechanical device for tilting and decanting a bottle of wine. 

  • A suspended scaffold used in shafts. 

  • An implement consisting of a broad scythe for cutting grain, with a set of long fingers parallel to the scythe, designed to receive the grain, and to lay it evenly in a swath. 

  • A basket or apparatus in which, when a line has been made fast to a wrecked ship from the shore, the people are brought off from the wreck. 

verb
  • To wrap protectively, to hold gently and protectively. 

  • To lull or quieten, as if by rocking. 

  • To transport a vessel by means of a cradle. 

  • To rock (a baby to sleep). 

  • To contain in or as if in a cradle. 

  • To nurse or train in infancy. 

  • To rock the lacrosse stick back and forth in order to keep the ball in the head by means of centrifugal force. 

  • To put ribs across the back of (a picture), to prevent the panels from warping. 

  • To cut and lay (grain) with a cradle. 

cricket

noun
  • A wooden footstool. 

  • A relatively small area of a roof constructed to divert water from a horizontal intersection of the roof with a chimney, wall, expansion joint, or other projection. 

  • A signalling device used by soldiers in hostile territory to identify themselves to a friendly in low visibility conditions. 

  • A variant of the game of darts. See Cricket (darts). 

  • An aural warning sound consisting of a continuously-repeating chime, designed to be difficult for pilots to ignore. 

  • An insect in the order Orthoptera, especially family Gryllidae, that makes a chirping sound by rubbing its wing casings against combs on its hind legs. 

  • A game played outdoors with bats and a ball between two teams of eleven, popular in England and many Commonwealth countries. 

  • An act that is fair and sportsmanlike. 

  • In the form crickets: absolute silence; no communication. 

verb
  • To play the game of cricket. 

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