stay vs twist

stay

verb
  • To incline forward, aft, or to one side by means of stays. 

  • To live; reside 

  • To put off; defer; postpone; delay; keep back. 

  • To brace or support with a stay or stays 

  • To remain in a particular place, especially for a definite or short period of time; sojourn; abide. 

  • To stop; detain; keep back; delay; hinder. 

  • To continue to have a particular quality. 

  • To change; tack; go about; be in stays, as a ship. 

  • To hold out, as in a race or contest; last or persevere to the end; to show staying power. 

  • To restrain; withhold; check; stop. 

  • To hold the attention of. 

  • To cause to cease; to put an end to. 

  • To prop; support; sustain; hold up; steady. 

  • To support from sinking; to sustain with strength; to satisfy in part or for the time. 

  • To tack; put on the other tack. 

adj
  • Steep; ascending. 

  • Difficult to negotiate; not easy to access; sheer. 

  • Stiff; upright; unbending; reserved; haughty; proud. 

  • (of a roof) Steeply pitched. 

noun
  • A guy, rope, or wire supporting or stabilizing a platform, such as a bridge, a pole, such as a tentpole, the mast of a derrick, or other structural element. 

  • Continuance or a period of time spent in a place; abode for an indefinite time. 

  • A piece of stiff material, such as plastic or whalebone, used to stiffen a piece of clothing. 

  • A corset. 

  • Restraint of passion; prudence; moderation; caution; steadiness; sobriety. 

  • A fixed state; fixedness; stability; permanence. 

  • A strong rope or wire supporting a mast, and leading from one masthead down to some other, or other part of the vessel. 

  • The transverse piece in a chain-cable link. 

  • A prop; a support. 

  • A postponement, especially of an execution or other punishment. 

  • A station or fixed anchorage for vessels. 

adv
  • Steeply. 

twist

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

  • 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 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). 

noun
  • 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 small roll of tobacco. 

  • 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. 

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