gnarl vs twirl

gnarl

verb
  • To knot or twist something. 

  • To snarl or growl; to gnar. 

noun
  • A knot in wood; a large or hard knot, or a protuberance with twisted grain, on a tree. 

  • Something resembling a knot in wood, such as in stone or limbs. 

adj
  • Gnarled, knotty, twisted. 

twirl

verb
  • To twist round. 

  • To pitch. 

  • To rotate rapidly. 

  • To perform a twirl. 

noun
  • A little twist of some substance; a swirl. 

  • A movement where a person spins round elegantly; a pirouette. 

  • Any rotating movement; a spin. 

  • A prison guard. 

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