stem vs work

stem

verb
  • To be caused or derived; to originate. 

  • To direct the stem (of a ship) against; to make headway against. 

  • To ram (clay, etc.) into a blasting hole. 

  • To move the feet apart and point the tips of the skis inward in order to slow down the speed or to facilitate a turn. 

  • To stop, hinder (for instance, a river or blood). 

  • To descend in a family line. 

  • To remove the stem from. 

noun
  • A lesbian, chiefly African-American, exhibiting both stud and femme traits. 

  • A branch of a family. 

  • A component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the bicycle fork. 

  • The penis. 

  • A slender supporting member of an individual part of a plant such as a flower or a leaf; also, by analogy, the shaft of a feather. 

  • A premixed portion of a track for use in audio mastering and remixing. 

  • A person's leg. 

  • The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached. 

  • A vertical stroke marking the length of a note in written music. 

  • A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon. 

  • A part of an anatomic structure considered without its possible branches or ramifications. 

  • A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism. 

  • The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors. 

  • The above-ground stalk (technically axis) of a vascular plant, and certain anatomically similar, below-ground organs such as rhizomes, bulbs, tubers, and corms. 

  • A vertical stroke of a letter. 

  • A crack pipe; or the long, hollow portion of a similar pipe (i.e. meth pipe) resembling a crack pipe. 

  • The main part of an uninflected word to which affixes may be added to form inflections of the word. A stem often has a more fundamental root. Systematic conjugations and declensions derive from their stems. 

  • An advanced or leading position; the lookout. 

work

verb
  • To cause to happen or to occur as a consequence. 

  • To embroider with thread. 

  • To cause to ferment. 

  • To function correctly; to act as intended; to achieve the goal designed for. 

  • To shape, form, or improve a material. 

  • Followed by with. General use, said of either fellow employees or instruments or clients. 

  • To pull off; to wear, perform, etc. successfully or to advantage. 

  • Followed by as. Said of one's job title 

  • To behave in a certain way when handled 

  • To exhaust, by working. 

  • Followed by in (or at, etc.) Said of one's workplace (building), or one's department, or one's trade (sphere of business). 

  • To ferment. 

  • To set into action. 

  • Followed by for. Said of a company or individual who employs. 

  • To use or manipulate to one’s advantage. 

  • To provoke or excite; to influence. 

  • To operate in a certain place, area, or speciality. 

  • To cause to work. 

  • To effect by gradual degrees; 

  • To influence. 

  • To move in an agitated manner. 

  • To cause (someone) to feel (something); to do unto somebody (something, whether good or bad). 

  • To do a specific task by employing physical or mental powers. 

  • To effect by gradual degrees. 

  • To operate in or through; as, to work the phones. 

noun
  • The staging of events to appear as real. 

  • The result of a particular manner of production. 

  • Sustained effort to overcome obstacles and achieve a result. 

  • The equipment needed to inject a drug (syringes, needles, swabs etc.) 

  • Ore before it is dressed. 

  • A measure of energy expended in moving an object; most commonly, force times distance. No work is done if the object does not move. 

  • Something produced using the specified material or tool. 

  • One's employer. 

  • Something on which effort is expended. 

  • effort expended on a particular task. 

  • The place where one is employed. 

  • A fortification. 

  • A measure of energy that is usefully extracted from a process. 

  • A literary, artistic, or intellectual production. 

  • labour, occupation, job. 

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