broad vs taper

broad

noun
  • A kind of floodlight. 

  • A British gold coin worth 20 shillings, issued by the Commonwealth of England in 1656. 

  • A shallow lake, one of a number of bodies of water in eastern Norfolk and Suffolk. 

  • A lathe tool for turning down the insides and bottoms of cylinders. 

adj
  • General rather than specific. 

  • Extended, in the sense of diffused; open; clear; full. 

  • Comprehensive; liberal; enlarged. 

  • Having a large measure of any thing or quality; unlimited; unrestrained. 

  • Unsubtle; obvious. 

  • Plain; evident. 

  • Free; unrestrained; unconfined. 

  • Strongly regional. 

  • Wide in extent or scope. 

  • Velarized, i.e. not palatalized. 

taper

noun
  • A small light. 

  • A cone-shaped item for stretching the hole for an ear gauge (piercing). 

  • Someone who works with tape or tapes. 

  • A thin stick used for lighting candles, either a wax-coated wick or a slow-burning wooden rod. 

  • One who operates a tape machine. 

  • A slender wax candle. 

  • A tapering form; gradual diminution of thickness and/or cross section in an elongated object. 

verb
  • To diminish gradually. 

  • To become thinner or narrower at one end. 

  • To make thinner or narrower at one end. 

  • (of a central bank) To tighten monetary policy. 

adj
  • Tapered; narrowing to a point. 

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