ratchet vs whirl

ratchet

noun
  • A ratchet wrench. 

  • A pawl, click, or detent for holding or propelling a ratchet wheel, or ratch, etc. 

  • A noisemaker or musical instrument where sound is generated by a board striking against a rotating gear. See gragger, raganella. 

  • A procedure or regulation that goes in one direction, usually up. 

  • A mechanism composed of a ratchet wheel, or ratch and pawl. 

adj
  • Ghetto; unseemly, indecorous. 

verb
  • To increment or decrement. 

  • To cause to become incremented or decremented. 

whirl

noun
  • Something that whirls. 

  • (usually following “give”) A brief experiment or trial. 

  • A rapid series of events. 

  • Dizziness or giddiness. 

  • An act of whirling. 

  • A confused tumult. 

verb
  • To make something or someone whirl. 

  • To have a sensation of spinning or reeling. 

  • To remove or carry quickly with, or as with, a revolving motion; to snatch. 

  • To rotate, revolve, spin or turn rapidly. 

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