flipper vs tangle

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. 

tangle

verb
  • To catch and hold. 

  • To mix together or intertwine. 

  • To enter into an argument, conflict, dispute, or fight. 

  • To become mixed together or intertwined. 

noun
  • Any large type of seaweed, especially a species of Laminaria. 

  • An argument, conflict, dispute, or fight. 

  • A complicated or confused state or condition. 

  • A tangled twisted mass. 

  • A paired helical fragment of tau protein found in a nerve cell and associated with Alzheimer's disease. 

  • Any long hanging thing, even a lanky person. 

  • A region of the projection of a knot such that the knot crosses its perimeter exactly four times. 

  • An instrument consisting essentially of an iron bar to which are attached swabs, or bundles of frayed rope, or other similar substances, used to capture starfishes, sea urchins, and other similar creatures living at the bottom of the sea. 

  • A form of art which consists of sections filled with repetitive patterns. 

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