skip vs stagger

skip

verb
  • To move by hopping on alternate feet. 

  • To cause the stylus to jump back to the previous loop of the record's groove, continously repeating that part of the sound, as a result of excessive scratching or wear. 

  • To skim, ricochet or bounce over a surface. 

  • To pass by a stitch as if it were not there, continuing with the next stitch. 

  • To place an item in a skip (etymology 2, sense 1). 

  • To throw (something), making it skim, ricochet, or bounce over a surface. 

  • To disregard, miss or omit part of a continuation (some item or stage). 

  • To have insufficient ink transfer. 

  • To leap about lightly. 

  • Not to attend (some event, especially a class or a meeting). 

  • To jump rope. 

  • To leave, especially in a sudden and covert manner. 

  • To leap lightly over. 

noun
  • A large open-topped container for waste, designed to be lifted onto the back of a truck to remove it along with its contents. (see also skep). 

  • A college servant. 

  • A skip car. 

  • The player who calls the shots and traditionally throws the last two rocks. 

  • An Australian of Anglo-Celtic descent. 

  • A leaping, jumping or skipping movement. 

  • The scoutmaster of a troop of scouts (youth organization) and their form of address to him. 

  • The act of passing over an interval from one thing to another; an omission of a part. 

  • A wheeled basket used in cotton factories. 

  • A skep, or basket, such as a creel or a handbasket. 

  • A person who attempts to disappear so as not to be found. 

  • A charge of syrup in the pans. 

  • A passage from one sound to another by more than a degree at once. 

  • skywave propagation 

  • The captain of a sports team. Also, a form of address by the team to the captain. 

  • The captain of a bowls team, who directs the team's tactics and rolls the side's last wood, so as to be able to retrieve a difficult situation if necessary. 

  • A beehive. 

  • A transportation container in a mine, usually for ore or mullock. 

stagger

verb
  • 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 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. 

  • 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 skip and stagger occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )