inch vs weasel

inch

verb
  • to humiliate; to provoke; to speak in a cocky and cheeky manner 

  • To drive by inches, or small degrees. 

  • To advance very slowly, or by a small amount (in a particular direction). 

  • To deal out by inches; to give sparingly. 

adj
  • cocky and cheeky 

noun
  • A depth of one inch on the ground, used as a measurement of rainfall. 

  • A small island; an islet. 

  • A meadow, pasture, field, or haugh. 

  • Any very short distance. 

  • A depth of one inch in a glass, used as a rough measurement of alcoholic beverages. 

  • An English unit of length equal to 1/12 of a foot or 2.54 cm, roughly the width of a thumb. 

  • Any of various similar units of length in other traditional systems of measurement. 

weasel

verb
  • To engage in clever or devious behavior. 

  • To gain something for oneself by clever or devious means. 

  • To achieve by clever or devious means. 

noun
  • The taxonomic family Mustelidae is also called the weasel family. 

  • Any of the carnivorous mammals of the genus Mustela, having a slender body, a long tail and usually a light brown upper coat and light-coloured belly. 

  • The least weasel, Mustela nivalis. 

  • A devious or sneaky person or animal. 

  • A type of yarn winder used for counting the yardage of handspun yarn. It most commonly has a wooden peg or dowel that pops up from the gearing mechanism after a certain number of yards have been wound onto the winder. 

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