ruck vs spat

ruck

noun
  • An argument or fight. 

  • A contest in games in which the ball is thrown or bounced in the air and two players from opposing teams attempt to give their team an advantage, typically by tapping the ball to a teammate. 

  • Any one of a ruckman, a ruck rover or a rover; a follower. 

  • The common mass of people or things; the ordinary ranks. 

  • A small heifer. 

  • The situation formed when a player carrying the ball is brought to the ground and one or more members of each side are engaged above the ball, trying to win possession of it; a loose scrum. 

  • A player who competes in said contests; a ruckman or ruckwoman. 

  • A rucksack; a large backpack. 

  • A throng or crowd of people or things; a mass, a pack. 

  • A crease, a wrinkle, a pucker, as on fabric. 

verb
  • To become folded. 

  • To contest the possession of the ball in a ruck. 

  • To carry a backpack while hiking or marching. 

  • To crease or fold. 

spat

noun
  • A brief argument, falling out, quarrel. 

  • A covering or decorative covering worn over a shoe. 

  • A juvenile shellfish which has attached to a hard surface. 

  • A drag-reducing aerodynamic fairing covering the upper portions of the tyres of an aeroplane equipped with non-retractable landing gear. 

  • A piece of bodywork that covers the upper portions of the rear tyres of a car. 

  • An obsolete unit of distance in astronomy (symbol S), equal to one billion kilometres. 

  • A light blow with something flat. 

  • The spawn of shellfish, especially oysters and similar molluscs. 

verb
  • To slap, as with the open hand; to clap together, as the hands. 

  • To spawn. Used of shellfish as above. 

  • To quarrel or argue briefly. 

  • To strike with a spattering sound. 

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