foundation vs spire

foundation

noun
  • The result of the work to begin something; that which stabilizes and allows an enterprise or system to develop. 

  • The lowest and supporting part or member of a wall, including the base course and footing courses; in a frame house, the whole substructure of masonry. 

  • A donation or legacy appropriated to support a charitable institution, and constituting a permanent fund; endowment. 

  • A basis for social bodies or intellectual disciplines. 

  • The act of founding, fixing, establishing, or beginning to erect. 

  • That which is founded, or established by endowment; an endowed institution or charity. 

  • Cosmetic cream roughly skin-colored, designed to make the face appear uniform in color and texture. 

  • That upon which anything is founded; that on which anything stands, and by which it is supported; the lowest and supporting layer of a superstructure; underbuilding. 

  • In solitaire or patience games, one of the piles of cards that the player attempts to build, usually holding all cards of a suit in ascending order. 

spire

noun
  • A tapering structure built on a roof or tower, especially as one of the central architectural features of a church or cathedral roof. 

  • One of the sinuous foldings of a serpent or other reptile; a coil. 

  • A young shoot of a plant; a spear. 

  • A tube or fuse for communicating fire to the charge in blasting. 

  • A spiral. 

  • The top, or uppermost point, of anything; the summit. 

  • The part of a spiral generated in one revolution of the straight line about the pole. 

  • Any of various tall grasses, rushes, or sedges, such as the marram, the reed canary-grass, etc. 

  • A sharp or tapering point. 

verb
  • to sprout, to send forth the early shoots of growth; to germinate. 

  • To furnish with a spire. 

  • To grow upwards rather than develop horizontally. 

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