curb vs grade

curb

noun
  • A concrete margin along the edge of a road; a kerb (UK, Australia, New Zealand) 

  • Something that checks or restrains; a restraint. 

  • A swelling on the back part of the hind leg of a horse, just behind the lowest part of the hock joint, generally causing lameness. 

  • A riding or driving bit for a horse that has rein action which amplifies the pressure in the mouth by leverage advantage placing pressure on the poll via the crown piece of the bridle and chin groove via a curb chain. 

  • A sidewalk, covered or partially enclosed, bordering the airport terminal road system with adjacent paved areas to permit vehicles to off-load or load passengers. 

  • A raised margin along the edge of something, such as a well or the eye of a dome, as a strengthening. 

verb
  • To rein in. 

  • To bend or curve. 

  • To furnish with a curb, as a well; to restrain by a curb, as a bank of earth. 

  • To crouch; to cringe. 

  • To damage vehicle wheels or tires by running into or over a pavement curb. 

  • To check, restrain or control. 

  • To bring to a stop beside a curb. 

grade

noun
  • A slope (up or down) of a roadway or other passage 

  • Performance on a test or other evaluation(s), expressed by a number, letter, or other symbol; a score. 

  • An area that has been flattened by a grader (construction machine). 

  • In a linear system of divisors on an n-dimensional variety, the number of free intersection points of n generic divisors. 

  • A harsh scraping or cutting; a grating. 

  • A rating. 

  • A taxon united by a level of morphological or physiological complexity that is not a clade. 

  • A degree or level of something; a position within a scale; a degree of quality. 

  • A level of primary and secondary education. 

  • A gradian. 

  • An eyeglass prescription. 

  • The degree of malignity of a tumor expressed on a scale. 

  • Degree (any of the three stages (positive, comparative, superlative) in the comparison of an adjective or an adverb). 

  • The level of the ground. 

  • A student of a particular grade (used with the grade level). 

verb
  • To describe, modify or inflect so as to classify as to degree. 

  • To pass imperceptibly from one grade into another. 

  • To pass from one school grade into the next. 

  • To assign scores to the components of an academic test, or to overall academic performance. 

  • To flatten, level, or smooth a large surface, especially with a grader. 

  • To remove or trim part of a seam allowance from a finished seam so as to reduce bulk and make the finished piece more even when turned right side out. 

  • To apply classifying labels to data (typically by a manual rather than automatic process). 

  • To organize in grades. 

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