shifter vs wrench

shifter

noun
  • A spanner with an adjustable jaw size. 

  • A word whose meaning changes depending on the situation, as by deixis. 

  • A switcher or shunter: a railroad locomotive used for shunting. 

  • One who, or that which, shifts or changes. 

  • An assistant to the ship's cook in washing, steeping, and shifting the salt provisions. 

  • A component used by the rider to control the gearing mechanisms and select the desired gear ratio, usually connected to the derailleur by a mechanical actuation cable. 

  • An arrangement for shifting a belt sidewise from one pulley to another. 

  • A genre of erotica focusing on lycanthropes or other shapeshifters, such as werewolves. 

  • A person who changes the reality their consciousness resides in, through meditation or other means. 

  • A wire for changing a loop from one needle to another, as in narrowing, etc. 

  • A person employed to repair the horseways and other passages, and keep them unobstructed. 

  • A shape-shifter, or a person or other being capable of changing their physical form. 

wrench

noun
  • An adjustable spanner used by plumbers. 

  • In screw theory, a screw assembled from force and torque vectors arising from application of Newton's laws to a rigid body. 

  • A movement that twists or pulls violently; a tug. 

  • An injury caused by a violent twisting or pulling of a limb; strain, sprain. 

  • A distorting change from the original meaning. 

  • In coursing, the act of bringing the hare round at less than a right angle, worth half a point in the recognised code of points for judging. 

  • A hand tool for making rotational adjustments, such as fitting nuts and bolts, or fitting pipes; a spanner. 

  • A violent emotional change caused by separation. 

verb
  • To rack with pain; to be hurt or distressed. 

  • To deprive by means of a violent pull or twist. 

  • To use a wrench; to twist with a wrench. 

  • To pull or twist violently. 

  • To injure (a joint) by pulling or twisting. 

  • To distort the original meaning of; to misrepresent. 

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