shearing vs slew

shearing

noun
  • The act or operation of reaping. 

  • Deformation by forces acting in opposite directions. 

  • The process of making a vertical side cutting in working into a face of coal. 

  • The act or operation of clipping with shears or a shearing machine, as the wool from sheep, or the nap from cloth. 

  • The material cut off in this way. 

  • The process of preparing shear steel; tilting. 

  • The act or operation of dividing with shears. 

adj
  • Tending to cut or tear. 

slew

noun
  • The act, or process of slewing. 

  • A large amount. 

  • A change of position. 

  • A device used for slewing. 

  • A wet place; a river inlet. 

verb
  • To insert extra ticks or skip some ticks of a clock to slowly correct its time. 

  • To rotate or turn something about its axis. 

  • To pivot. 

  • simple past tense of slay 

  • To veer a vehicle. 

  • To move something (usually a railway line) sideways. 

  • To skid. 

  • To make a public mockery of someone through insult or wit. 

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