staple vs stapler

staple

noun
  • A wire fastener used to secure stacks of paper by penetrating all the sheets and curling around. 

  • Unmanufactured material; raw material. 

  • A wire fastener used to secure something else by penetrating and curling. 

  • One of a set of U-shaped metal rods hammered into a structure, such as a piling or wharf, which serve as a ladder. 

  • A basic or essential supply. 

  • A town containing merchants who have exclusive right, under royal authority, to purchase or produce certain goods for export; also, the body of such merchants seen as a group. 

  • A U-shaped metal fastener, used to attach fence wire or other material to posts or structures. 

  • A small pit. 

  • A district granted to an abbey. 

  • Place of supply; source. 

  • The principal commodity produced in a town or region. 

  • A recurring topic or character. 

  • A shaft, smaller and shorter than the principal one, joining different levels. 

  • Short fiber, as of cotton, sheep’s wool, or the like, which can be spun into yarn or thread. 

verb
  • To sort according to its staple. 

  • To secure with a staple. 

adj
  • Fit to be sold; marketable. 

  • Relating to, or being market of staple for, commodities. 

  • Established in commerce; occupying the markets; settled. 

  • Regularly produced or manufactured in large quantities; belonging to wholesale traffic; principal; chief. 

stapler

noun
  • A device which binds together sheets of paper by driving a thin metal staple through the sheets and simultaneously folding over the ends of the staple against the back surface of the paper. 

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