hammer vs pluck

hammer

noun
  • The act of using a hammer to hit something. 

  • The malleus, a small bone of the middle ear. 

  • The accelerator pedal. 

  • A device made of a heavy steel ball attached to a length of wire, and used for throwing. 

  • A moving part of a firearm that strikes the firing pin to discharge a gun. 

  • The last stone in an end. 

  • A frisbee throwing style in which the disc is held upside-down with a forehand grip and thrown above the head. 

  • Part of a clock that strikes upon a bell to indicate the hour. 

  • One who, or that which, smites or shatters. 

  • A tool with a heavy head and a handle used for pounding. 

  • In a piano or dulcimer, a piece of wood covered in felt that strikes the string. 

verb
  • To declare (a person) a defaulter on the stock exchange. 

  • To ride very fast. 

  • To make high demands on (a system or service). 

  • To emphasize a point repeatedly. 

  • To beat down the price of (a stock), or depress (a market). 

  • To have hard sex with. 

  • To strike repeatedly with a hammer, some other implement, the fist, etc. 

  • To form or forge with a hammer; to shape by beating. 

  • To defeat (a person, a team) resoundingly 

  • To hit particularly hard. 

  • To strike internally, as if hit by a hammer. 

pluck

noun
  • An instance of plucking or pulling sharply. 

  • Guts, nerve, fortitude or persistence. 

  • The lungs, heart with trachea and often oesophagus removed from slaughtered animals. 

  • Cheap wine. 

verb
  • To take or remove (someone) quickly from a particular place or situation. 

  • To pull something sharply; to pull something out 

  • To pull or twitch sharply. 

  • To remove feathers from a bird. 

  • To play a string instrument pizzicato. 

  • To gently play a single string, e.g. on a guitar, violin etc. 

  • Of a glacier: to transport individual pieces of bedrock by means of gradual erosion through freezing and thawing. 

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