stagger vs terminate

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. 

terminate

verb
  • To end, conclude, or cease; to come to an end. 

  • Of a mode of transport, to end its journey; or, of a railway line, to reach its terminus. 

  • To conclude. 

  • To end the employment contract of an employee; to fire, lay off. 

  • To set or be a limit or boundary to. 

  • To kill someone or something. 

  • To issue or result. 

  • To end something, especially when left in an incomplete state. 

adj
  • Having a definite and clear limit or boundary; having a determinate size, shape or magnitude. 

  • Terminated; limited; bounded; ended. 

  • Expressible in a finite number of terms; (of a decimal) not recurring or infinite. 

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