dipper vs shovel

dipper

noun
  • A cup-shaped vessel with a long handle, for dipping into and ladling out liquids; a ladle or scoop. 

  • A Baptist or Dunker. 

  • A person employed in a tin plate works to coat steel plates in molten tin by dipping them. 

  • Any snack food intended to be dipped in sauce. 

  • The control in a vehicle that switches between high-beam and low-beam (i.e. dips the lights), especially when used to signal other vehicles. 

  • Any of various small passerine birds of the genus Cinclus that live near fast-flowing streams and feed along the bottom. 

  • A pickpocket. 

  • One who, or that which, dips (immerses something, or itself, into a liquid). 

  • A person employed to assist a bather in and out of the sea. 

shovel

noun
  • A hand tool with a handle, used for moving portions of material such as earth, snow, and grain from one place to another, with some forms also used for digging. Not to be confused with a spade, which is designed solely for small-scale digging and incidental tasks such as chopping of small roots. 

  • A mechanical part of an excavator with a similar function. 

  • A spade. 

verb
  • To move materials with a shovel. 

  • To move with a shoveling motion. 

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