crook vs fritter

crook

noun
  • An artifice; a trick; a contrivance. 

  • A small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn, etc., to change its pitch or key. 

  • A pothook. 

  • A bent or curved part; a curving piece or portion (of anything). 

  • A bishop's standard staff of office. 

  • A bend; turn; curve; curvature; a flexure. 

  • A person who steals, lies, cheats or does other dishonest or illegal things; a criminal. 

  • A specialized staff with a semi-circular bend (a "hook") at one end used by shepherds to control their herds. 

  • A bending of the knee; a genuflection. 

adj
  • Ill, sick. 

  • Bad, unsatisfactory, not up to standard. 

  • Annoyed, angry; upset. 

verb
  • To turn from the path of rectitude; to pervert; to misapply; to twist. 

  • To become bent or hooked. 

  • To bend, or form into a hook. 

fritter

noun
  • A fragment; a shred; a small piece. 

  • A dish made by deep-frying food coated in batter. 

verb
  • To break into small pieces or fragments. 

  • To cut (meat etc.) into small pieces for frying. 

  • To sinter. 

  • To squander or waste time, money, or other resources; e.g. occupy oneself idly or without clear purpose, to tinker with an unimportant part of a project, to dally, sometimes as a form of procrastination. 

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