nip vs shoehorn

nip

verb
  • To squeeze or pinch. 

  • To annoy, as by nipping. 

  • To make a quick, short journey or errand, usually a round trip. 

  • To blast, as by frost; to check the growth or vigor of; to destroy. 

  • To catch and enclose or compress tightly between two surfaces, or points which are brought together or closed; to pinch; to close in upon. 

  • To taunt. 

  • To benumb [e.g., cheeks, fingers, nose] by severe cold. 

  • To remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip. 

noun
  • A hamburger. 

  • A more or less gradual thinning out of a stratum. 

  • Briskly cold weather. 

  • A playful bite. 

  • A small cut, or a cutting off the end. 

  • A small quantity of something edible or a potable liquor. 

  • A nipple, usually of a woman. 

  • A pinch with the nails or teeth. 

  • A seizing or closing in upon; a pinching 

  • A blast; a killing of the ends of plants by frost. 

  • A short turn in a rope. 

  • The place of intersection where one roll touches another 

  • A biting sarcasm; a taunt. 

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 nip and shoehorn occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )