hand vs needle

hand

noun
  • A bundle of tobacco leaves tied together. 

  • A bunch of bananas, a typical retail amount, where individual fruits are fingers. 

  • Power of performance; means of execution; ability; skill; dexterity. 

  • Management, domain, control. 

  • Applause. 

  • The set of cards held by a player. 

  • That which has the appearance of, a human hand. 

  • Four inches, a hand's breadth. 

  • A whole rhizome of ginger. 

  • Handwriting; style of penmanship. 

  • An instance of helping. 

  • A limb of certain animals, such as the foot of a hawk, or any one of the four extremities of a monkey. 

  • A side; part, camp; direction, either right or left. 

  • Personal possession; ownership. 

  • The small part of a gunstock near the lock, which is grasped by the hand in taking aim. 

  • Promise, word; especially of a betrothal. 

  • The part of the forelimb below the forearm or wrist in a human, and the corresponding part in many other animals. 

  • An index or pointer on a dial; such as the hour and minute hands on the face of an analog clock, which are used to indicate the time of day. 

  • An agent; a servant, or manual laborer; a workman, trained or competent for special service or duty. 

  • The feel of a fabric; the impression or quality of the fabric as judged qualitatively by the sense of touch. 

  • A round of a card game. 

  • A Native American gambling game, involving guessing the whereabouts of bits of ivory or similar, which are passed rapidly from hand to hand. 

  • A bunch of bananas. 

  • A person's autograph or signature. 

  • A performer more or less skilful. 

verb
  • To lead, guide, or assist with the hand; to conduct. 

  • To give, pass or transmit with the hand, literally or figuratively. 

  • To pledge by the hand; to handfast. 

  • To furl. 

needle

noun
  • A needle-like leaf found on some conifers. 

  • Any slender, pointed object resembling a needle, such as a pointed crystal, a sharp pinnacle of rock, an obelisk, etc. 

  • A strong beam resting on props, used as a temporary support during building repairs. 

  • A sensor for playing phonograph records, a phonograph stylus. 

  • A text string that is searched for within another string. (see: needle in a haystack) 

  • A fine measurement indicator on a dial or graph. 

  • A long, thin, sharp implement usually for piercing as in sewing, embroidery, acupuncture, tattooing, body piercing, medical injections, sutures, etc; or a blunt but otherwise similar implement used for forming loops or knots in crafts such as darning, knitting, tatting, etc. 

  • The death penalty carried out by lethal injection. 

  • Any of various species of damselfly of the genus Synlestes, endemic to Australia. 

verb
  • To form, or be formed, in the shape of a needle. 

  • To tease in order to provoke; to poke fun at. 

  • To pierce with a needle, especially for sewing or acupuncture. 

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