nip vs pinch

nip

verb
  • To squeeze or pinch. 

  • To annoy, as by nipping. 

  • To make a quick, short journey or errand, usually a round trip. 

  • To blast, as by frost; to check the growth or vigor of; to destroy. 

  • To catch and enclose or compress tightly between two surfaces, or points which are brought together or closed; to pinch; to close in upon. 

  • To taunt. 

  • To benumb [e.g., cheeks, fingers, nose] by severe cold. 

  • To remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip. 

noun
  • A hamburger. 

  • A more or less gradual thinning out of a stratum. 

  • Briskly cold weather. 

  • A playful bite. 

  • A small cut, or a cutting off the end. 

  • A small quantity of something edible or a potable liquor. 

  • A nipple, usually of a woman. 

  • A pinch with the nails or teeth. 

  • A seizing or closing in upon; a pinching 

  • A blast; a killing of the ends of plants by frost. 

  • A short turn in a rope. 

  • The place of intersection where one roll touches another 

  • A biting sarcasm; a taunt. 

pinch

verb
  • To seize; to grip; to bite. 

  • To squeeze between two objects. 

  • Of clothing, to be uncomfortably tight in specific spots. 

  • To arrest or capture. 

  • To squeeze between the thumb and forefinger. 

  • To sail so close-hauled that the sails begin to flutter. 

  • To take hold; to grip, as a dog does. 

  • To steal, usually something inconsequential. 

  • To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve. 

  • To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch. 

  • To cut shoots or buds of a plant in order to shape the plant, or to improve its yield. 

  • To squeeze a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt. 

noun
  • A close compression of anything with the fingers. 

  • A small amount of powder or granules, such that the amount could be held between fingertip and thumb tip. 

  • An awkward situation of some kind (especially money or social) which is difficult to escape. 

  • An organic herbal smoke additive. 

  • A magnetic compression of an electrically-conducting filament. 

  • The narrow part connecting the two bulbs of an hourglass. 

  • The action of squeezing a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt. 

  • An arrest. 

  • A metal bar used as a lever for lifting weights, rolling wheels, etc. 

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