knockdown vs stagger

knockdown

noun
  • a short pass played downwards, for example from the head onto someone's feet. 

  • The condition of a sailboat being pushed abruptly to horizontal, with the mast parallel to the water surface. 

  • An act of knocking down or the condition of being knocked down. 

  • A shelter erected for use as a temporary dressing room. 

  • A collection of parts required to assemble a product, typically manufactured in one region and exported elsewhere for assembly. 

  • A genetically modified organism that carries one or more genes in its chromosomes that have been made less active or had their expression reduced. 

  • The use of a reagent such as an oligonucleotide with sequence complementary to an active gene or its mRNA transcript, to interfere with the expression of said gene. 

  • An overwhelming blow. 

adj
  • To be formed into a head by upsetting in fastening. 

  • reduced in price, originally to a price below which an article would not be sold by the auctioneer 

  • powerful enough to overwhelm or knock down 

  • Capable of being taken apart for packing or removal. 

verb
  • To employ the knockdown technique 

stagger

noun
  • An unsteady movement of the body in walking or standing as if one were about to fall; a reeling motion. 

  • The spacing out of various actions over time. 

  • One who attends a stag night. 

  • The horizontal positioning of a biplane, triplane, or multiplane's wings in relation to one another. 

  • Bewilderment; perplexity. 

  • The difference in circumference between the left and right tires on a racing vehicle. It is used on oval tracks to make the car turn better in the corners. 

  • A disease of horses and other animals, attended by reeling, unsteady gait or sudden falling. 

verb
  • To cease to stand firm; to begin to give way; to fail. 

  • To begin to doubt and waver in purposes; to become less confident or determined; to hesitate. 

  • To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately, as the spokes of a wheel or the rivets of a boiler seam. 

  • In standing or walking, to sway from one side to the other as if about to fall; to stand or walk unsteadily; to reel or totter. 

  • To cause to doubt and waver; to make to hesitate; to make less steady or confident; to shock. 

  • To arrange similar objects such that each is ahead or above and to one side of the next. 

  • To schedule in intervals or at different times. 

  • To cause to reel or totter. 

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