canton vs shire

canton

verb
  • To delineate as a separate district. 

  • To divide into cantons. 

  • To allot quarters to troops. 

noun
  • A small community or clan. 

  • A subdivision of an arrondissement of France. 

  • A division of Luxembourg, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc. 

  • A division of a political unit. 

  • A division of a shield occupying one third of the chief, usually on the dexter side, formed by a perpendicular line from the top meeting a horizontal line from the side. 

  • One of the states comprising the Swiss Confederation. 

  • A subdivision of a flag, the rectangular inset on the upper hoist (i.e., flagpole) side (e.g., the stars of the US national flag are in a canton). 

shire

verb
  • To (re)constitute as one or more shires or counties. 

  • County Longford was shired in 1586 

noun
  • A shire horse. 

  • The general area in which a person lives or comes from, used in the context of travel within the United Kingdom. 

  • A rural or outer suburban local government area of Australia. 

  • Physical area administered by a sheriff. 

  • Former administrative area of Britain; a county. 

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