flipper vs surface

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. 

surface

verb
  • To rise to the surface. 

  • To apply a surface to something. 

  • To make (information or facts) known. 

  • To become known or apparent; to appear or be found. 

  • To provide something with a surface. 

  • To bring to the surface. 

  • To come out of hiding. 

  • To work a mine near the surface. 

noun
  • Outward or external appearance. 

  • The outside hull of a tangible object. 

  • The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid. 

  • The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space. 

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