flipper vs latch

flipper

verb
  • To lift one or both flippers out of the water and slap the surface of the water. 

noun
  • Television remote control, clicker. 

  • A type of ball bowled by a leg spin bowler, which spins backwards and skids off the pitch with a low bounce. 

  • A flat lever in a pinball machine, triggered by the player to strike the ball and keep it in play. 

  • A kind of false tooth, usually temporary. 

  • A small flat used to support a larger one. 

  • Someone who flips, in the sense of buying a house or other asset and selling it quickly for profit. 

  • Someone who flips in any other sense, for example throwing a coin. 

  • In marine mammals such as whales, a wide flat limb, adapted for swimming. 

  • A flat, wide, paddle-like rubber covering for the foot, used in swimming. 

  • A kitchen spatula. 

latch

verb
  • To catch; lay hold of. 

  • To close or lock as if with a latch. 

noun
  • A breastfeeding baby's connection to the breast. 

  • A lightweight lock to protect internal structures from being modified by multiple concurrent accesses. 

  • A fastening for a door that has a bar that fits into a notch or slot, and is lifted by a lever or string from either side. 

  • An electronic circuit that is like a flip-flop, except that it is level triggered instead of edge triggered. 

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