flipper vs spike

flipper

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

  • 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 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. 

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

spike

noun
  • An attack from, usually, above the height of the net performed with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block. 

  • A mark indicating where a prop or other item should be placed on stage. 

  • A kind of inflorescence in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis. 

  • An adolescent male deer. 

  • A small project that uses the simplest possible program to explore potential solutions. 

  • A surge in power or in the price of a commodity, etc.; any sudden and brief change that would be represented by a sharp peak on a graph. 

  • A running shoe with spikes in the sole to provide grip. 

  • Spike lavender. 

  • Anything resembling such a nail in shape. 

  • The rod-like protrusion from a woman's high-heeled shoe that elevates the heel. 

  • A sort of very large nail. 

  • Synonym of endpin. 

  • A sharp peak in a graph. 

  • A piece of pointed metal etc. set with points upward or outward. 

  • A long nail for storing papers by skewering them; (by extension) the metaphorical place where rejected newspaper articles are sent. 

  • The casual ward of a workhouse. 

  • An ear of corn or grain. 

verb
  • To render (a gun) unusable by driving a metal spike into its touch hole. 

  • To attack from, usually, above the height of the net with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block. 

  • To slam the football to the ground, usually in celebration of scoring a touchdown, or to stop expiring time on the game clock after snapping the ball as to save time for the losing team to attempt to score the tying or winning points. 

  • To set or furnish with spikes. 

  • To discard; to decide not to publish or make public. 

  • To covertly put alcohol or another intoxicating substance into a drink. 

  • To inject a drug with a syringe. 

  • To fix on a spike. 

  • To increase sharply. 

  • To embed nails into (a tree) so that any attempt to cut it down will damage equipment or injure people. 

  • To add a small amount of one substance to another. 

  • To fasten with spikes, or long, large nails. 

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