gripe vs tow

gripe

noun
  • 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. 

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

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. 

tow

noun
  • A rope or cable used in towing. 

  • The short, coarse, less desirable fibres separated by hackling from the finer longer fibres (line). 

  • Something, such as a barge, that is towed. 

  • The act of towing and the condition of being towed. 

  • Something, such as a tugboat, that tows. 

  • A speed increase given by driving in front of another car on a straight, which causes a slipstream for the car behind. 

  • An untwisted bundle of fibres such as cellulose acetate, flax, hemp or jute. 

verb
  • To aid someone behind by shielding them from wind resistance. 

  • To pull something behind one using a line or chain; to haul. 

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