cannon vs shank

cannon

noun
  • A bone of a horse's leg, between the fetlock joint and the knee or hock. 

  • A cannon bit. 

  • Any similar device for shooting material out of a tube. 

  • An autocannon. 

  • A complete assembly, consisting of an artillery tube and a breech mechanism, firing mechanism or base cap, which is a component of a gun, howitzer or mortar. It may include muzzle appendages. 

  • The arm of a player who can throw well. 

  • A large muzzle-loading artillery piece. 

  • A carom. 

  • A hollow cylindrical piece carried by a revolving shaft, on which it may, however, revolve independently. 

  • A piece which moves horizontally and vertically like a rook but captures another piece by jumping over a different piece in the line of attack. 

  • A cylindrical item of plate armor protecting the arm, particularly one of a pair of such cylinders worn with a couter, the upper cannon protecting the upper arm and the lower cannon protecting the forearm. 

  • A pickpocket. 

verb
  • To bombard with cannons. 

  • To fire something, especially spherical, rapidly. 

  • To collide or strike violently, especially so as to glance off or rebound. 

  • To play the carom billiard shot; to strike two balls with the cue ball. 

shank

noun
  • The part of the leg between the knee and the ankle. 

  • The center part of a fishhook between the eye and the hook, the 'hook' being the curved part that bends toward the point. 

  • A poorly played golf shot in which the ball is struck by the part of the club head that connects to the shaft. 

  • A redshank or greenshank, various species of Old World wading birds in the genus Tringa having distinctly colored legs. 

  • A large ladle for molten metal, fitted with long bars for handling it. 

  • The main part or beginning of a period of time. 

  • Meat from that part of an animal. 

  • The handle of a pair of shears, connecting the ride to the neck. 

  • An improvised stabbing weapon. 

  • The space between two channels of the Doric triglyph. 

  • The part of the sole beneath the instep connecting the broader front part with the heel. 

  • The end or remainder, particularly of a period of time. 

  • A loop forming an eye to a button. 

  • The metal part on a curb bit that falls below the mouthpiece, which length controls the severity of the leverage action of the bit, and to which the reins of the bridle are attached. 

  • A protruding part of an object, by which it is or can be attached. 

  • A straight, narrow part of an object, such as a key or an anchor; shaft; stem. 

  • Flat-nosed pliers, used by opticians for nipping off the edges of pieces of glass to make them round. 

adj
  • Bad. 

verb
  • To hit or kick the ball in an unintended direction. 

  • To misstrike the ball with the part of the club head that connects to the shaft. 

  • To fall off, as a leaf, flower, or capsule, on account of disease affecting the supporting footstalk; usually followed by off. 

  • To remove another's trousers, especially in jest; to depants. 

  • To provide (a button) with a shank (loop forming an eye). 

  • To apply the shank to a shoe, during the process of manufacturing it. 

  • To stab, especially with an improvised blade. 

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