lay vs shoehorn

lay

verb
  • To apply; to put. 

  • To take a position; to come or go. 

  • To place down in a position of rest, or in a horizontal position. 

  • To don or put on (tefillin (phylacteries)). 

  • To have sex with. 

  • To place (new type) properly in the cases. 

  • To place and arrange (pages) for a form upon the imposing stone. 

  • To impose (a burden, punishment, command, tax, etc.). 

  • To produce and deposit an egg. 

  • To lie: to rest in a horizontal position on a surface. 

  • To deposit (a stake) as a wager; to stake; to risk. 

  • To bet (that something is or is not the case). 

  • To point; to aim. 

  • To be in a horizontal position; to lie (from confusion with lie). 

  • To present or offer. 

  • simple past tense of lie when pertaining to position. 

  • To state; to allege. 

  • To impute; to charge; to allege. 

  • To put the strands of (a rope, a cable, etc.) in their proper places and twist or unite them. 

  • To install certain building materials, laying one thing on top of another. 

  • To prepare (a plan, project etc.); to set out, establish (a law, principle). 

adj
  • Non-professional; not being a member of an organized institution. 

  • Not trumps. 

  • Not belonging to the clergy, but associated with them. 

noun
  • The direction a rope is twisted. 

  • A casual sexual partner. 

  • A lake. 

  • A ballad or sung poem; a short poem or narrative, usually intended to be sung. 

  • What was I, just another lay you can toss aside as you go on to your next conquest? 

  • Arrangement or relationship; layout. 

  • An act of sexual intercourse. 

  • A share of the profits in a business. 

  • A lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance. 

  • The laying of eggs. 

shoehorn

verb
  • To force (something) into (a tight space); to squeeze (something) into (a schedule, etc); to exert great effort to insert or include (something); to include (something) despite potent reasons not to. 

  • To use a shoehorn. 

  • To force some current event into alignment with some (usually unconnected) agenda, especially when it is fallacious. 

noun
  • A smooth tool that assists in putting the foot into a shoe, by sliding the heel in after the toe is in place. This reduces discomfort and damage to the back of the shoe. By slipping it into the back of the shoe behind the heel, the user prevents the heel from squashing down the back of the shoe and causing difficulty; instead the heel slides down the smooth shoehorn, which then comes out easily once the foot is in place. 

  • Anything by which a transaction is facilitated; a medium. 

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