crank vs termite

crank

noun
  • An ill-tempered or nasty person. 

  • Synonym of methamphetamine. 

  • A twist or turn in speech; word play consisting in a change of the form or meaning of a word. 

  • An amateur in science or other technical subjects who persistently advocates flawed theories 

  • The penis. 

  • A twist or turn of the mind; caprice; whim; 

  • The act of converting power into motion, by turning a crankshaft. 

  • A bent piece of an axle or shaft, or an attached arm perpendicular, or nearly so, to the end of a shaft or wheel, used to impart a rotation to a wheel or other mechanical device; also used to change circular into reciprocating motion, or reciprocating into circular motion. 

  • a fit of temper or passion. 

adj
  • Full of spirit; brisk; lively; sprightly; overconfident; opinionated. 

  • Liable to capsize because of poorly stowed cargo or insufficient ballast. 

  • Sick; unwell. 

  • Strange, weird, odd. 

verb
  • To turn. 

  • To cause to spin via other means, as though turned by a crank. 

  • To turn by means of a crank. 

  • To act in a cranky manner; to behave unreasonably and irritably, especially through complaining. 

  • To turn a crank. 

  • To be running at a high level of output or effort. 

termite

noun
  • A contemptible person. 

  • A white-bodied, wood-consuming insect of the infraorder Isoptera, in the order Blattodea. 

verb
  • Of a chimpanzee: to catch termites by inserting a stick or vine into their nest and waiting for them to climb up it. 

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