grapple vs tongs

grapple

noun
  • A device consisting of iron claws, attached to the end of a rope, used for grasping and holding an enemy ship prior to boarding; a grappling iron. 

  • A grapnel (“type of anchor”). 

  • A close hand-to-hand struggle. 

  • A combination of grape and apple flavors. 

  • The act of grappling. (uncountable) 

verb
  • To hook and raise with a grapple. 

  • To ponder and intensely evaluate a problem; to struggle to deal with. 

  • To climb (whether by means of a grapple and rope, or by hand, etc). 

  • To fasten, as with a grapple; (by extension) to fix; to join indissolubly. 

  • To wrestle or tussle. 

  • To seize something and hold it firmly. 

  • To use a grapple (for example to attempt to find, hook, and raise a net or cable). 

tongs

noun
  • A large scissors-like two-piece center-hinged forged-iron implement with oval-loop handles and with pointed tips turned inward (in the same plane as and perpendicular to the handles) to facilitate lifting and carrying a block of ice. Often called ice tongs. 

  • An instrument or tool used for picking things up without touching them with the hands or fingers, consisting of two slats or grips hinged at the end or in the middle, and sometimes including a spring to open the grips. 

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