broom vs squeegee

broom

noun
  • A domestic utensil with fibers bound together at the end of a long handle, used for sweeping. 

  • An implement with which players sweep the ice to make a stone travel further and curl less; a sweeper. 

  • Any of several yellow-flowered shrubs of the family Fabaceae, in the tribe Genisteae, including genera Cytisus, Genista, and Spartium, with long, thin branches and small or few leaves. 

  • A shotgun, because it is more or less long, held similarly to a besom and “cleans” what is in front. 

verb
  • To sweep with a broom. 

  • to get rid of someone, like firing an employee or breaking up with a girlfriend, to sweep another out of one's life 

  • To improve the embedding of a membrane by using a broom or squeegee to smooth it out and ensure contact with the adhesive under the membrane. 

squeegee

noun
  • A short-handled tool, especially as used on car windshields and home windows. 

  • A tool used to remove excess moisture from a print. 

  • A street-cleaning machine consisting of a roller made of squeegee blades pulled by a horse. 

  • A long-handled tool used on ships for swabbing the decks and spreading protective coatings. 

  • Similar long-handled tools used for drying or leveling surfaces such as paths and roadways. 

  • A tool used to force the ink through the stencil in silk-screen printing. 

  • A person who uses a squeegee, especially one who "cleans" the windshield of a car stopped at a traffic light and then demands payment. 

verb
  • To use a squeegee. 

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