place vs shoehorn

place

verb
  • To arrange for or to make (a bet). 

  • To finish second, especially of horses or dogs. 

  • To sing (a note) with the correct pitch. 

  • To earn a given spot in a competition. 

  • To rank at (a certain position, often followed by an ordinal) as in a horse race. 

  • To remember where and when (an object or person) has been previously encountered. 

  • To establish a call (connection by telephone or similar). 

  • To put (an object or person) in a specific location. 

  • To recruit or match an appropriate person for a job, or a home for an animal for adoption, etc. 

  • To place-kick (a goal). 

noun
  • An inhabited area: a village, town, or city. 

  • Numerically, the column counting a certain quantity. 

  • A state of mind. 

  • The position of first, second, or third at the finish, especially the second position. 

  • An area of the body, especially the skin. 

  • An open space, particularly a city square, market square, or courtyard. 

  • The position of a contestant in a competition. 

  • A location or position in space. 

  • Reception; effect; implying the making room for. 

  • The area one occupies, particularly somewhere to sit. 

  • A role or purpose; a station. 

  • A street, sometimes but not always surrounding a public place, square, or plaza of the same name. 

  • The area where one lives: one's home, formerly (chiefly) country estates and farms. 

  • A particular location in a book or document, particularly the current location of a reader. 

  • The position as a member of a sports team. 

  • Ordinal relation; position in the order of proceeding. 

  • An area to urinate and defecate: an outhouse or lavatory. 

  • Any area of the earth: a region. 

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