creeper vs shrub

creeper

noun
  • Any plant (as ivy or periwinkle) that grows by creeping, especially a climbing plant of the genus Parthenocissus. 

  • A one-piece garment for infants designed to facilitate access to the wearer's diaper. 

  • A small four-hooked grapnel used to recover objects dropped onto the sea bed. 

  • Any device for causing material to move steadily from one part of a machine to another, such as an apron in a carding machine, or an inner spiral in a grain screen. 

  • The lowest gear of a tractor or truck. 

  • A small low iron, or dog, between the andirons. 

  • A person who creeps people out; a creepy person. 

  • A metal plate with spikes, designed to be worn with shoes to prevent slipping. 

  • An instrument with iron hooks or claws for dredging up items from a well or other water. 

  • A person or a thing that crawls or creeps. 

  • A low-profile wheeled platform whereupon an auto mechanic may lie on their back and gain better access to the underbody of a vehicle. 

  • A kind of shoe, usually with a suede upper and a thick crepe sole, associated with various 20th-century subcultures. 

  • A spur-like device strapped to the boot to facilitate climbing. 

  • A ball that travels low, near ground level. 

  • A device which allows a small child to safely roam around a room from a seated or standing position. 

  • A treecreeper. 

shrub

noun
  • A woody plant smaller than a tree, and usually with several stems from the same base. 

  • A word mispronounced by replacing some consonant sounds with others of a similar place of articulation due to interference from one's knowledge of an indigenous Kenyan language. 

  • A liquor composed of vegetable acid, fruit juice (especially lemon), sugar, sometimes vinegar, and a small amount of spirit as a preservative. Modern shrub is usually non-alcoholic, but in earlier times it was often mixed with a substantial amount of spirit such as brandy or rum, thus making it a liqueur. 

verb
  • To mispronounce a word by replacing some consonant sounds with others of a similar place of articulation due to interference from one's knowledge of an indigenous Kenyan language. 

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