pawn vs pluck

pawn

noun
  • An instance of pawning something. 

  • A gallery. 

  • Someone who is being manipulated or used to some end. 

  • A pawnshop; pawnbroker. 

  • The state of being held as security for a loan, or as a pledge. 

  • The most numerous chess piece, or a similar piece in a similar game. In chess, each side starts with eight; moves are only forward, and attacks are only diagonally or en passant. 

verb
  • To give as security on a loan of money; especially, to deposit (something) at a pawn shop. 

  • To pledge; to stake or wager. 

pluck

noun
  • An instance of plucking or pulling sharply. 

  • Guts, nerve, fortitude or persistence. 

  • The lungs, heart with trachea and often oesophagus removed from slaughtered animals. 

  • Cheap wine. 

verb
  • To take or remove (someone) quickly from a particular place or situation. 

  • To pull something sharply; to pull something out 

  • To pull or twitch sharply. 

  • To remove feathers from a bird. 

  • To play a string instrument pizzicato. 

  • To gently play a single string, e.g. on a guitar, violin etc. 

  • Of a glacier: to transport individual pieces of bedrock by means of gradual erosion through freezing and thawing. 

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