position vs spot

position

noun
  • A place or location. 

  • A commitment, or a group of commitments, such as options or futures, to buy or sell a given amount of financial instruments, such as securities, currencies or commodities, for a given price. 

  • The full state of a chess game at any given turn. 

  • A situation suitable to perform some action. 

  • The order in which players are seated around the table. 

  • A status or rank. 

  • A method of solving a problem by one or two suppositions; also called the rule of trial and error. 

  • An opinion, stand, or stance. 

  • A posture. 

  • A place on the playing field, together with a set of duties, assigned to a player. 

  • A post of employment; a job. 

  • An amount of securities, commodities, or other financial instruments held by a person, firm, or institution. 

verb
  • To put into place. 

spot

noun
  • A location or area. 

  • A bill of five-dollar or ten-dollar denomination in dollars. 

  • A bright lamp; a spotlight. 

  • The southern redfish, or red horse (Sciaenops ocellatus), which has a spot on each side at the base of the tail. 

  • The act of spotting or noticing something. 

  • An official determination of placement. 

  • A brief advertisement or program segment on television. 

  • Penalty spot. 

  • A food fish (Leiostomus xanthurus) of the Atlantic coast of the United States, with a black spot behind the shoulders and fifteen oblique dark bars on the sides. 

  • A variety of the common domestic pigeon, so called from a spot on its head just above the beak. 

  • An autosoliton. 

  • A round or irregular patch on the surface of a thing having a different color, texture etc. and generally round in shape. 

  • A parking space. 

  • One who spots (supports or assists a maneuver, or is prepared to assist if safety dictates); a spotter. 

  • Any of various points marked on the table, from which balls are played, in snooker, pool, billiards, etc. 

  • A difficult situation. 

  • A pimple, papule or pustule. 

  • A stain or disfiguring mark. 

  • A decimal point; point. 

  • Any of the balls marked with spots in the game of pool, which one player aims to pot, the other player taking the stripes. 

  • A small, unspecified amount or quantity. 

verb
  • To cut or chip (timber) in preparation for hewing. 

  • To retouch a photograph on film to remove minor flaws. 

  • To keep the head and eyes pointing in a single direction while turning. 

  • To place an object at a location indicated by a spot. 

  • To support or assist a maneuver, or to be prepared to assist if safety dictates. 

  • To remove, or attempt to remove, a stain. 

  • To loan a small amount of money to someone. 

  • To stain; to leave a spot (on). 

  • To see, find; to pick out, notice, locate, distinguish or identify. 

  • To position (a locomotive or car) at a predetermined point, e.g., for loading or unloading. 

  • To position (an aircraft) on the deck of an aircraft carrier ready for launch by catapult. 

  • To stain; to blemish; to taint; to disgrace; to tarnish, as reputation. 

adj
  • Available on the spot; for immediate payment or delivery. 

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