banister vs cross-member

banister

noun

  • One of the vertical supports of a handrail; a baluster. 

  • The handrail on the side of a staircase. 

verb

  • To construct a banister 

  • To act as a banister 

cross-member

noun

  • A beam lying crosswise; a rail. 

How often have the words banister and cross-member occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )