swing vs windmill

swing

noun
  • A dance style. 

  • In a musical theater production, a performer who understudies several roles. 

  • Influence or power of anything put in motion. 

  • The amount of change towards or away from something. 

  • The genre of music associated with this dance style. 

  • The manner in which something is swung. 

  • The sweep or compass of a swinging body. 

  • In an election, the increase or decrease in the number of votes for opposition parties compared with votes for the incumbent party. 

  • A basic dance step in which a pair link hands and turn round together in a circle. 

  • A type of hook with the arm more extended. 

  • A hanging seat that can swing back and forth, in a children's playground, for acrobats in a circus, or on a porch for relaxing. 

  • A line, cord, or other thing suspended and hanging loose, upon which anything may swing. 

  • Sideways movement of the ball as it flies through the air. 

  • Capacity of a turning lathe, as determined by the diameter of the largest object that can be turned in it. 

  • The maximum amount of change that has occurred or can occur; the sum of the maximum changes in any direction. 

verb
  • To move one's arm in a punching motion. 

  • To put (a door, gate, etc.) on hinges so that it can swing or turn. 

  • To move sideways in its trajectory. 

  • To change (a numerical result); especially to change the outcome of an election. 

  • To hang from the gallows; to be punished by hanging, swing for something or someone; (often hyperbolic) to be severely punished. 

  • To make (something) work; especially to afford (something) financially. 

  • To admit or turn something for the purpose of shaping it; said of a lathe. 

  • To turn in a different direction. 

  • To play notes that are in pairs by making the first of the pair slightly longer than written (augmentation) and the second shorter, resulting in a bouncy, uneven rhythm. 

  • To move (an object) backward and forward; to wave. 

  • To ride on a swing. 

  • To dance. 

  • To fluctuate or change. 

  • (of a bowler) To make the ball move sideways in its trajectory. 

  • To participate in the swinging lifestyle; to participate in wife-swapping. 

  • To turn round by action of wind or tide when at anchor. 

  • To rotate about an off-centre fixed point. 

  • In dancing, to turn around in a small circle with one's partner, holding hands or arms. 

windmill

noun
  • A breakdancing move in which the dancer rolls his/her torso continuously in a circular path on the floor, across the upper chest, shoulders and back, while twirling the legs in a V shape in the air. 

  • A pitch where the pitcher swings his arm in a circular motion before throwing the ball. 

  • A child's toy consisting of vanes mounted on a stick that rotate when blown by a person or by the wind. 

  • Any of various muscle exercises in which a large deal of the body makes a great circle, typically one where a kettlebell is raised overhead and the torso is rotated to the other side with the hand reaching its foot (hitting the core, glutes, hamstrings, trapezius, rhomboids, deltoids and rotator cuffs) but sometimes even a windshield wiper. 

  • Any of various large papilionid butterflies of the genus Byasa, the wings of which resemble the vanes of a windmill. 

  • An imaginary enemy, but presented as real. 

  • A guitar move where the strumming hand mimics a turning windmill. 

  • A machine which translates linear motion of wind to rotational motion by means of adjustable vanes called sails. 

  • The structure containing such machinery. 

  • The false shower. 

  • A dunk where the dunker swings his arm in a circular motion before throwing the ball through the hoop. 

verb
  • To rotate with a sweeping motion. 

  • Of a rotating part of a machine, to (become disengaged and) rotate freely. 

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