roll vs twist

roll

noun
  • A cylindrical twist of tobacco. 

  • A winning streak of continuing luck, especially at gambling (and especially in the phrase on a roll). 

  • A heavy, reverberatory sound. 

  • A swagger or rolling gait. 

  • A quantity of cloth wound into a cylindrical form. 

  • A catalogue or list, (especially) one kept for official purposes. 

  • The act of, or total resulting from, rolling one or more dice. 

  • A document written on a piece of parchment, paper, or other materials which may be rolled up; a scroll. 

  • A training match for a fighting dog. 

  • One of a set of revolving cylinders, or rollers, between which metal is pressed, formed, or smoothed, as in a rolling mill. 

  • A kind of shortened raised biscuit or bread, often rolled or doubled upon itself; see also bread roll. 

  • The rotation angle about the longitudinal axis. 

  • Any of various financial instruments or transactions that involve opposite positions at different expiries, "rolling" a position from one expiry to another. 

  • A forward or backward roll in gymnastics; going head over heels. A tumble. 

  • The uniform beating of a drum with strokes so rapid as scarcely to be distinguished by the ear. 

  • The measure or extent to which a vessel rotates from side to side, about its fore-and-aft axis. 

  • That which is rolled up. 

  • A measure of parchments, containing five dozen. 

  • An instance of the act of righting a canoe or kayak which has capsized, without exiting the watercraft, or being assisted. 

  • The skill of righting a canoe or kayak which has capsized, without exiting the watercraft, or being assisted. 

  • The act or result of rolling, or state of being rolled. 

  • The oscillating movement of a nautical vessel as it rotates from side to side, about its fore-and-aft axis, causing its sides to go up and down, as distinguished from the alternate rise and fall of bow and stern called pitching; or the equivalent in an aircraft. 

  • An official or public document; a register; a record. 

  • An instance of the act of rolling an aircraft through one or more complete rotations about its longitudinal axis. 

  • A heavy cylinder used to break clods. 

verb
  • To travel by sailing. 

  • To cause to betray secrets or to testify for the prosecution. 

  • To enrobe in toilet-paper (as a prank or spectacle). 

  • To perform a periodical revolution; to move onward as with a revolution. 

  • To cause to revolve by turning over and over; to move by turning on an axis; to impel forward by causing to turn over and over on a supporting surface. 

  • To leave or begin a journey. 

  • To engage in sparring in the context of jujitsu or other grappling disciplines. 

  • To load ocean freight cargo onto a vessel other than the one it was meant to sail on. 

  • To move, like waves or billows, with alternate swell and depression. 

  • To rotate about the fore-and-aft axis, causing its sides to go up and down. Compare pitch. 

  • To make a loud or heavy rumbling noise. 

  • To slip past (a defender) with the ball. 

  • To wrap (something) round on itself; to form into a spherical or cylindrical body by causing to turn over and over. 

  • To tumble in gymnastics; to do a somersault. 

  • To be wound or formed into a cylinder or ball. 

  • To beat with rapid, continuous strokes, as a drum; to sound a roll upon. 

  • to move and cause an effect on someone 

  • To create a new character in a role-playing game, especially by using dice to determine properties. 

  • To throw dice. 

  • To generate a random number. 

  • To have a rolling aspect. 

  • To create a customized version of. 

  • To (cause to) film. 

  • To utter with an alveolar trill. 

  • To beat up; to assault. 

  • To be under the influence of MDMA (a psychedelic stimulant, also known as ecstasy). 

  • To bind or involve by winding, as in a bandage; to enwrap; often with up. 

  • To compete, especially with vigor. 

  • To behave in a certain way; to adopt a general disposition toward a situation. 

  • To turn over in one's mind; to revolve. 

  • To roll dice such that they form a given pattern or total. 

  • To turn over and over. 

  • To apply (one line or surface) to another without slipping; to bring all the parts of (one line or surface) into successive contact with another, in such a manner that at every instant the parts that have been in contact are equal. 

  • To drive or impel forward with an easy motion, as of rolling. 

  • To spread itself under a roller or rolling-pin. 

  • To utter copiously, especially with sounding words; to utter with a deep sound; — often with forth, or out. 

  • To press or level with a roller; to spread or form with a roll, roller, or rollers. 

  • To move, or cause to be moved, upon, or by means of, rollers or small wheels. 

  • To betray secrets. 

twist

noun
  • A small roll of tobacco. 

  • A sliver of lemon peel added to a cocktail, etc. 

  • A distortion to the meaning of a word or passage. 

  • A sudden bend (or short series of bends) in a road, path, etc. 

  • A twisting force. 

  • The form given in twisting. 

  • An unexpected turn in a story, tale, etc. 

  • A roll or baton of baked dough or pastry in a twisted shape. 

  • The spiral course of the rifling of a gun barrel or a cannon. 

  • A type of dance characterised by rotating one’s hips. See Twist (dance) on Wikipedia for more details. 

  • A strong individual tendency or bent; inclination. 

  • The degree of stress or strain when twisted. 

  • Anything twisted, or the act of twisting. 

  • A sprain, especially to the ankle. 

  • A girl, a woman. 

  • A material for gun barrels, consisting of iron and steel twisted and welded together. 

  • A type of thread made from two filaments twisted together. 

  • A rotation of the body when diving. 

verb
  • To turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force. 

  • To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts. 

  • To distort or change the truth or meaning of words when repeating. 

  • In the game of blackjack (pontoon or twenty-one), to be dealt another card. 

  • To turn a knob etc. 

  • To join together by twining one part around another. 

  • To wind into; to insinuate. 

  • To form a twist (in any of the above noun meanings). 

  • To wind; to follow a bendy or wavy course; to have many bends. 

  • To injure (a body part) by bending it in the wrong direction. 

  • To cause to rotate. 

  • To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve. 

  • To coax. 

  • To dance the twist (a type of dance characterised by twisting one's hips). 

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