number vs single

number

noun
  • A marijuana cigarette, or joint; also, a quantity of marijuana bought from a dealer. 

  • A sequence of digits and letters used to register people, automobiles, and various other items. 

  • Of a word or phrase, the state of being singular, dual or plural, shown by inflection. 

  • An item of clothing, particularly a stylish one. 

  • An element of one of several sets: natural numbers, integers, rational numbers, real numbers, complex numbers, and sometimes extensions such as hypercomplex numbers, etc. 

  • Indicating the position of something in a list or sequence. Abbreviations: No or No., no or no. (in each case, sometimes written with a superscript "o", like Nº or №). The symbol "#" is also used in this manner. 

  • Quantity. 

  • A person. 

  • A large amount of damage 

  • A large amount, in contrast to a smaller amount; numerical preponderance. 

  • A telephone number. 

  • An abstract entity used to describe quantity. 

  • A performance; especially, a single song or song and dance routine within a larger show. 

  • A numeral: a symbol for a non-negative integer. 

verb
  • To label (items) with numbers; to assign numbers to (items). 

  • To total or count; to amount to. 

single

noun
  • A single cigarette. 

  • A score of one point, awarded when a kicked ball is dead within the non-kicking team's end zone or has exited that end zone. 

  • A bill valued at $1. 

  • A 45 RPM vinyl record with one song on side A and one on side B. 

  • A tile that has a different value (i.e. number of pips) at each end. 

  • A one-way ticket. 

  • A handful of gleaned grain. 

  • A popular song released and sold (on any format) nominally on its own though usually having at least one extra track. 

  • A shot of only one character. 

  • A score of one run. 

  • A game with one player on each side, as in tennis. 

  • One of the reeled filaments of silk, twisted without doubling to give them firmness. 

  • A floating-point number having half the precision of a double-precision value. 

  • One who is not married or does not have a romantic partner. 

  • A hit in baseball where the batter advances to first base. 

verb
  • To take the irregular gait called singlefoot. 

  • To reduce (a railway) to single track. 

  • To identify or select one member of a group from the others; generally used with out, either to single out or to single (something) out. 

  • To thin out. 

  • To get a hit that advances the batter exactly one base. 

adj
  • Not accompanied by anything else; one in number. 

  • Designed for the use of only one. 

  • Performed by one person, or one on each side. 

  • Not divided in parts. 

  • Not married, and (in modern times) not dating or without a significant other. 

  • Having only one rank or row of petals. 

  • Uncompounded; pure; unmixed. 

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