slate vs whiting

slate

noun
  • A chalkboard, sheet of slate for writing on with chalk or with a thin rod of slate (a slate pencil) formerly commonly used by both students and teachers in schools. 

  • An artificial material resembling slate and used for the same purposes. 

  • A list of affiliated candidates for an election. 

  • A record of money owed. 

  • A tablet computer. 

  • A thin plate of any material; a flake. 

  • A fine-grained homogeneous sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash which has been metamorphosed so that it cleaves easily into thin layers. 

  • The bluish-grey colour of most slate. 

  • A roofing-tile made of slate. 

verb
  • To cover with slate. 

  • To schedule. 

  • To criticise harshly. 

  • To set a dog upon (a person). 

  • To anticipate or strongly expect. 

  • To nominate, appoint, or designate. 

adj
  • Having the bluish-grey/gray colour of slate. 

whiting

noun
  • A fine white chalk used in paints, putty, whitewash etc. 

  • Any of several marine fish found in North American coastal waters, including hakes (genus Merluccius), especially Merluccius bilinearis (the silver hake). 

  • A fish, Merlangius merlangus (family Gadidae), similar to cod, found in the North Atlantic; English whiting (US). 

  • Alaska pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus, syn. Theragra chalcogramma). 

  • A southern blue whiting (Micromesistius australis), a marine fish of the Southern Hemisphere. 

  • in family Sciaenidae, Menticirrhus americanus (Carolina whiting, king whiting, southern kingcroaker, and southern kingfish) found along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States. 

  • in family Sillaginidae, smelt-whitings, inhabiting Indo-Pacific marine coasts, many species of which are commercially important whitefish. 

  • A blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou), a marine fish of the Northern Hemisphere. 

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