flounder vs quibble

flounder

verb
  • To act clumsily or confused; to struggle or be flustered. 

  • To flop around as a fish out of water. 

  • To be in serious difficulty. 

  • He gave a good speech, but floundered when audience members asked questions he could not answer well. 

  • To make clumsy attempts to move or regain one's balance. 

noun
  • A bootmaker's tool for crimping boot fronts. 

  • A European species of flatfish having dull brown colouring with reddish-brown blotches; fluke, European flounder, Platichthys flesus. 

  • Any of various flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae or Bothidae. 

quibble

verb
  • To complain or argue in a trivial or petty manner. 

  • To contest, especially some trivial issue in a petty manner. 

noun
  • An objection or argument based on an ambiguity of wording or similar trivial circumstance; a minor complaint. 

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