flounder vs reel

flounder

verb
  • To make clumsy attempts to move or regain one's balance. 

  • To flop around as a fish out of water. 

  • To be in serious difficulty. 

  • He gave a good speech, but floundered when audience members asked questions he could not answer well. 

  • To act clumsily or confused; to struggle or be flustered. 

noun
  • A bootmaker's tool for crimping boot fronts. 

  • A European species of flatfish having dull brown colouring with reddish-brown blotches; fluke, European flounder, Platichthys flesus. 

  • Any of various flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae or Bothidae. 

reel

verb
  • To walk shakily or unsteadily; to stagger; move as if drunk or not in control of oneself. 

  • To wind on a reel. 

  • To produce a mechanical insect-like song, as in grass warblers. 

  • To unwind, to bring or acquire something by spinning or winding something else. 

  • To make or cause to reel. 

  • To spin or revolve repeatedly. 

  • To have a whirling sensation; to be giddy. 

  • To be in shock. 

  • To back off, step away, or sway backwards unsteadily and suddenly. 

noun
  • A device consisting of radial arms with horizontal stats, connected with a harvesting machine, for holding the stalks of grain in position to be cut by the knives. 

  • A lively dance originating in Scotland; also, the music of this dance; often called a Scottish (or Scotch) reel. 

  • A kind of spool, turning on an axis, on which yarn, threads, lines, or the like, are wound. 

  • A short compilation of sample film work used as a demonstrative resume in the entertainment industry. 

  • A shaky or unsteady gait. 

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