oakum vs tow

oakum

noun
  • A material, consisting of tarred fibres, used to caulk or pack joints in plumbing, masonry, and wooden shipbuilding. 

  • The coarse portion separated from flax or hemp in hackling. 

tow

noun
  • An untwisted bundle of fibres such as cellulose acetate, flax, hemp or jute. 

  • The short, coarse, less desirable fibres separated by hackling from the finer longer fibres (line). 

  • Something, such as a barge, that is towed. 

  • The act of towing and the condition of being towed. 

  • A rope or cable used in towing. 

  • Something, such as a tugboat, that tows. 

  • A speed increase given by driving in front of another car on a straight, which causes a slipstream for the car behind. 

verb
  • To aid someone behind by shielding them from wind resistance. 

  • To pull something behind one using a line or chain; to haul. 

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