egret vs spire

egret

noun
  • The flying feathery or hairy crown of seeds or achenes, such as the down of the thistle. 

  • A plume or tuft of feathers worn as a part of a headdress, or anything imitating such an ornament. 

  • Any of various wading birds of the genera Egretta or Ardea that includes herons, many of which are white or buff, and several of which develop fine plumes during the breeding season. 

spire

noun
  • A young shoot of a plant; a spear. 

  • A tapering structure built on a roof or tower, especially as one of the central architectural features of a church or cathedral roof. 

  • One of the sinuous foldings of a serpent or other reptile; a coil. 

  • A tube or fuse for communicating fire to the charge in blasting. 

  • A spiral. 

  • The top, or uppermost point, of anything; the summit. 

  • The part of a spiral generated in one revolution of the straight line about the pole. 

  • Any of various tall grasses, rushes, or sedges, such as the marram, the reed canary-grass, etc. 

  • A sharp or tapering point. 

verb
  • to sprout, to send forth the early shoots of growth; to germinate. 

  • To furnish with a spire. 

  • To grow upwards rather than develop horizontally. 

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