detour vs shortcut

detour

noun
  • A diversion or deviation from one's original route. 

  • The diversion of the flow of execution for debugging or similar purposes. 

verb
  • To make a detour. 

  • To direct or send on a detour. 

shortcut

noun
  • A path between two points that is faster than the commonly used paths. 

  • A keyboard shortcut: a combination of keystrokes that provides easier access to a command or operation. 

  • A method to accomplish something that omits one or more steps. 

  • A file that points to the location of another file and serves as a quick way to access it. 

verb
  • To take or use a shortcut 

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