buckle vs stagger

buckle

verb
  • To yield; to give way; to cease opposing. 

  • To buckle down; to apply oneself. 

  • To distort or collapse under physical pressure; especially, of a slender structure in compression. 

  • To give in; to react suddenly or adversely to stress or pressure (of a person). 

  • To make bend; to cause to become distorted. 

  • To fasten using a buckle. 

  • To unite in marriage. 

noun
  • A contorted expression, as of the face. 

  • A clasp used for fastening two things together, such as the ends of a belt, or for retaining the end of a strap. 

  • A curl of hair, especially a kind of crisp curl formerly worn; also, the state of being curled. 

  • An upward, elongated displacement of a roof membrane frequently occurring over insulation or deck joints. A buckle may be an indication of movement with the roof assembly. 

  • The brisure of an eighth daughter. 

  • A cake baked with fresh fruit and a streusel topping. 

  • A distortion, bulge, bend, or kink, as in a saw blade or a plate of sheet metal. 

stagger

verb
  • To cease to stand firm; to begin to give way; to fail. 

  • To begin to doubt and waver in purposes; to become less confident or determined; to hesitate. 

  • To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately, as the spokes of a wheel or the rivets of a boiler seam. 

  • In standing or walking, to sway from one side to the other as if about to fall; to stand or walk unsteadily; to reel or totter. 

  • To cause to doubt and waver; to make to hesitate; to make less steady or confident; to shock. 

  • To arrange similar objects such that each is ahead or above and to one side of the next. 

  • To schedule in intervals or at different times. 

  • To cause to reel or totter. 

noun
  • An unsteady movement of the body in walking or standing as if one were about to fall; a reeling motion. 

  • The spacing out of various actions over time. 

  • One who attends a stag night. 

  • The horizontal positioning of a biplane, triplane, or multiplane's wings in relation to one another. 

  • Bewilderment; perplexity. 

  • The difference in circumference between the left and right tires on a racing vehicle. It is used on oval tracks to make the car turn better in the corners. 

  • A disease of horses and other animals, attended by reeling, unsteady gait or sudden falling. 

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