cringe vs start

cringe

verb
  • To cower, flinch, recoil, shrink, or tense, as in disgust, embarrassment, or fear. 

  • To experience an inward feeling of disgust, embarrassment, or fear; (by extension) to feel very embarrassed. 

  • To bow or crouch in servility. 

  • To act in an obsequious or servile manner. 

noun
  • A gesture or posture of cringing (recoiling or shrinking). 

  • An act or disposition of servile obeisance. 

  • A crick (“painful muscular cramp or spasm of some part of the body”). 

  • Awkwardness or embarrassment which causes an onlooker to cringe; cringeworthiness. 

adj
  • Inducing awkwardness, embarrassment, or secondhand embarrassment; cringemaking, cringeworthy, cringy. 

start

verb
  • To flinch or draw back. 

  • To begin. 

  • To awaken suddenly. 

  • To put or raise (a question, an objection); to put forward (a subject for discussion). 

  • To disturb and cause to move suddenly; to startle; to alarm; to rouse; to cause to flee or fly. 

  • To break away, to come loose. 

  • To put into play. 

  • To move suddenly from its place or position; to displace or loosen; to dislocate. 

  • To pour out; to empty; to tap and begin drawing from. 

  • To set in motion. 

  • To have its origin (at), begin. 

  • To bring onto being or into view; to originate; to invent. 

  • To jerk suddenly in surprise. 

  • To start one's periods (menstruation). 

  • To begin an activity. 

  • To ready the operation of a vehicle or machine. 

noun
  • The beginning point of a race, a board game, etc. 

  • An appearance in a sports game, horserace, etc., from the beginning of the event. 

  • The curved or inclined front and bottom of a water wheel bucket. 

  • The arm, or level, of a gin, drawn around by a horse. 

  • An initial advantage over somebody else; a head start. 

  • A handle, especially that of a plough. 

  • A young plant germinated in a pot to be transplanted later. 

  • A projection or protrusion; that which pokes out. 

  • The beginning of an activity. 

  • An instance of starting. 

  • A sudden involuntary movement. 

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