hole vs spot

hole

noun
  • The part of a game in which a player attempts to hit the ball into one of the holes. 

  • An undesirable place to live or visit. 

  • A passing loop; a siding provided for trains traveling in opposite directions on a single-track line to pass each other. 

  • An excavation pit or trench. 

  • A card (also called a hole card) dealt face down thus unknown to all but its holder; the status in which such a card is. 

  • A container or receptacle. 

  • Difficulty, in particular, debt. 

  • In semiconductors, a lack of an electron in an occupied band behaving like a positively charged particle. 

  • The rear portion of the defensive team between the shortstop and the third baseman. 

  • Sex, or a sex partner. 

  • A security vulnerability in software which can be taken advantage of by an exploit. 

  • Solitary confinement, a high-security prison cell often used as punishment. 

  • A hollow place or cavity; an excavation; a pit; a dent; a depression; a fissure. 

  • An opening that goes all the way through a solid body, a fabric, etc.; a perforation; a rent. 

  • A weakness; a flaw or ambiguity. 

  • A chordless cycle in a graph. 

  • A square on the board, with some positional significance, that a player does not, and cannot in future, control with a friendly pawn. 

  • A subsurface standard-size hole, also called cup, hitting the ball into which is the object of play. Each hole, of which there are usually eighteen as the standard on a full course, is located on a prepared surface, called the green, of a particular type grass. 

  • In the game of fives, part of the floor of the court between the step and the pepperbox. 

  • An orifice, in particular the anus. When used with shut it always refers to the mouth. 

verb
  • To go into a hole. 

  • To make holes in (an object or surface). 

  • To cut, dig, or bore a hole or holes in. 

  • To drive into a hole, as an animal, or a billiard ball or golf ball. 

  • To destroy. 

spot

noun
  • Any of the balls marked with spots in the game of pool, which one player aims to pot, the other player taking the stripes. 

  • A bill of five-dollar or ten-dollar denomination in dollars. 

  • A bright lamp; a spotlight. 

  • The southern redfish, or red horse (Sciaenops ocellatus), which has a spot on each side at the base of the tail. 

  • The act of spotting or noticing something. 

  • An official determination of placement. 

  • A brief advertisement or program segment on television. 

  • Penalty spot. 

  • A food fish (Leiostomus xanthurus) of the Atlantic coast of the United States, with a black spot behind the shoulders and fifteen oblique dark bars on the sides. 

  • A variety of the common domestic pigeon, so called from a spot on its head just above the beak. 

  • An autosoliton. 

  • A round or irregular patch on the surface of a thing having a different color, texture etc. and generally round in shape. 

  • A parking space. 

  • One who spots (supports or assists a maneuver, or is prepared to assist if safety dictates); a spotter. 

  • Any of various points marked on the table, from which balls are played, in snooker, pool, billiards, etc. 

  • A difficult situation. 

  • A pimple, papule or pustule. 

  • A stain or disfiguring mark. 

  • A decimal point; point. 

  • A location or area. 

  • A small, unspecified amount or quantity. 

verb
  • To cut or chip (timber) in preparation for hewing. 

  • To retouch a photograph on film to remove minor flaws. 

  • To keep the head and eyes pointing in a single direction while turning. 

  • To place an object at a location indicated by a spot. 

  • To support or assist a maneuver, or to be prepared to assist if safety dictates. 

  • To remove, or attempt to remove, a stain. 

  • To loan a small amount of money to someone. 

  • To stain; to leave a spot (on). 

  • To see, find; to pick out, notice, locate, distinguish or identify. 

  • To position (a locomotive or car) at a predetermined point, e.g., for loading or unloading. 

  • To position (an aircraft) on the deck of an aircraft carrier ready for launch by catapult. 

  • To stain; to blemish; to taint; to disgrace; to tarnish, as reputation. 

adj
  • Available on the spot; for immediate payment or delivery. 

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