gripe vs spear

gripe

noun
  • An assemblage of ropes, dead-eyes, and hocks, fastened to ringbolts in the deck, to secure the boats when hoisted. 

  • A wire rope, often used on davits and other life raft launching systems. 

  • A complaint, often a petty or trivial one. 

  • The compass or sharpness of a ship's stern under the water, having a tendency to make her keep a good wind. 

  • The piece of timber that terminates the keel at the fore end; the forefoot. 

  • Pinching and spasmodic pain in the intestines. 

verb
  • To suffer griping pains. 

  • To tend to come up into the wind, as a ship which, when sailing close-hauled, requires constant labour at the helm. 

  • To annoy or bother. 

  • To complain; to whine. 

spear

noun
  • A lance with barbed prongs, used by fishermen to retrieve fish. 

  • An illegal maneuver using the end of a hockey stick to strike into another hockey player. 

  • The rod to which the bucket, or plunger, of a pump is attached; a pump rod. 

  • A long, thin strip from a vegetable. 

  • The sprout of a plant, stalk 

  • In professional wrestling, a running tackle in which the wrestler's shoulder is driven into the opponent's midsection. 

  • A shoot, as of grass; a spire. 

  • A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or anything used to make a thrusting motion. 

  • A soldier armed with such a weapon; a spearman. 

  • The feather of a horse. 

verb
  • To penetrate or strike with, or as if with, any long narrow object; to make a thrusting motion that catches an object on the tip of a long device. 

  • To pierce with a spear. 

  • To tackle an opponent by ramming into them with one's helmet. 

  • To shoot into a long stem, as some plants do. 

adj
  • Pertaining to male family members. 

  • Male. 

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