picket vs pole

picket

verb
  • To enclose or fortify with pickets or pointed stakes. 

  • To tether to, or as if to, a picket. 

  • To guard, as a camp or road, by an outlying picket. 

  • To protest, organized by a labour union, typically in front of the location of employment. 

noun
  • A type of punishment by which an offender had to rest his or her entire body weight on the top of a small stake. 

  • One of the soldiers or troops placed on a line forward of a position to warn against an enemy advance; or any unit (for example, an aircraft or ship) performing a similar function. 

  • A protester positioned outside an office, workplace etc. during a strike (usually in plural); also the protest itself. 

  • The card game piquet. 

  • A stake driven into the ground. 

  • A tool in mountaineering that is driven into the snow and used as an anchor or to arrest falls. 

  • A sentry. 

pole

verb
  • To convey on poles. 

  • To propel by pushing with poles, to push with a pole. 

  • To furnish with poles for support. 

  • To identify something quite precisely using a telescope. 

  • To stir, as molten glass, with a pole. 

  • To strike (the ball) very hard. 

  • To induce piezoelectricity in (a substance) by aligning the dipoles. 

noun
  • A telescope used to identify birds, aeroplanes or wildlife. 

  • Either of the two points on the earth's surface around which it rotates; also, similar points on any other rotating object. 

  • A construction by which an animal is harnessed to a carriage. 

  • A gun. 

  • Either of the states that characterize a bipolar disorder. 

  • A point of magnetic focus, especially each of the two opposing such points of a magnet (designated north and south). 

  • A fixed point relative to other points or lines. 

  • Originally, a stick; now specifically, a long and slender piece of metal or (especially) wood, used for various construction or support purposes. 

  • A type of basic fishing rod. 

  • A long sports implement used for pole-vaulting; now made of glassfiber or carbon fiber, formerly also metal, bamboo and wood have been used. 

  • Pole position. 

  • For a meromorphic function f(z), any point a for which f(z)→∞ as z→a. 

  • A unit of length, equal to a rod (¹⁄₄ chain or 5+¹⁄₂ yards). 

  • A penis. 

  • A contact on an electrical device (such as a battery) at which electric current enters or leaves. 

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