battle vs spar

battle

verb
  • To fight or struggle; to enter into a battle with. 

  • To render (land, soil, etc.) fertile or fruitful. 

  • To feed or nourish (someone or something). 

  • To join in battle; to contend in fight 

noun
  • A contest, a struggle. 

  • A general action, fight, or encounter, in which all the divisions of an army are or may be engaged; a combat, an engagement. 

  • battle buddy 

adj
  • Improving; nutritious; fattening. 

  • Fertile; fruitful. 

spar

verb
  • To fight, especially as practice for martial arts or hand-to-hand combat. 

  • To contest in words; to wrangle. 

  • To supply or equip (a vessel) with spars. 

  • To strike with the feet or spurs, as cocks do. 

noun
  • Any crystal with readily discernible faces. 

  • A rafter of a roof. 

  • A thick pole or piece of wood. 

  • A beam-like structural member that supports ribs in an aircraft wing or other airfoil. 

  • A sparring session; a preliminary fight, as in boxing or cock-fighting. 

  • Any of various microcrystalline minerals, of light, translucent, or transparent appearance, which are easily cleft. 

  • Any linear object used as a mast, sprit, yard, boom, pole or gaff. 

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