ether vs ripple

ether

noun
  • Starting fluid. 

  • The sky, the heavens; the void, nothingness. 

  • Diethyl ether (C₄H₁₀O), an organic compound with a sweet odour used in the past as an anaesthetic. 

  • The medium breathed by human beings; the air. 

  • A particular quality created by or surrounding an object, person, or place; an atmosphere, an aura. 

  • Any of a class of organic compounds containing an oxygen atom bonded to two hydrocarbon groups. 

  • The atmosphere or space as a medium for broadcasting radio and television signals; also, a notional space through which Internet and other digital communications take place; cyberspace. 

  • Often as aether and more fully as luminiferous aether: a substance once thought to fill all unoccupied space that allowed electromagnetic waves to pass through it and interact with matter, without exerting any resistance to matter or energy; its existence was disproved by the 1887 Michelson–Morley experiment and the theory of relativity propounded by Albert Einstein (1879–1955). 

verb
  • To viciously humiliate or insult. 

ripple

noun
  • A moving disturbance, or undulation, in the surface of a fluid. 

  • A style of ice cream in which flavors have been coarsely blended together. 

  • An implement, with teeth like those of a comb, for removing the seeds and seed vessels from flax, broom corn, etc. 

  • A small oscillation of an otherwise steady signal. 

  • A sound similar to that of undulating water. 

verb
  • To shape into a series of ripples. 

  • To launch or unleash in rapid succession. 

  • To scratch, tear, or break slightly; graze 

  • To propagate like a moving wave. 

  • To move like the undulating surface of a body of water; to undulate. 

  • To remove the seeds from (the stalks of flax, etc.), by means of a ripple. 

  • To make a sound as of water running gently over a rough bottom, or the breaking of ripples on the shore. 

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