tug vs wrench

tug

noun
  • A sudden powerful pull. 

  • A dog toy consisting of a rope, often with a knot in it. 

  • A trace, or drawing strap, of a harness. 

  • A tugboat. 

  • An iron hook of a hoisting tub, to which a tackle is affixed. 

  • An act of male masturbation. 

verb
  • To masturbate. 

  • To tow by tugboat. 

  • To pull or drag with great effort. 

  • To pull hard repeatedly. 

wrench

noun
  • A movement that twists or pulls violently; a tug. 

  • In screw theory, a screw assembled from force and torque vectors arising from application of Newton's laws to a rigid body. 

  • An injury caused by a violent twisting or pulling of a limb; strain, sprain. 

  • A distorting change from the original meaning. 

  • In coursing, the act of bringing the hare round at less than a right angle, worth half a point in the recognised code of points for judging. 

  • A hand tool for making rotational adjustments, such as fitting nuts and bolts, or fitting pipes; a spanner. 

  • An adjustable spanner used by plumbers. 

  • A violent emotional change caused by separation. 

verb
  • To rack with pain; to be hurt or distressed. 

  • To deprive by means of a violent pull or twist. 

  • To use a wrench; to twist with a wrench. 

  • To pull or twist violently. 

  • To injure (a joint) by pulling or twisting. 

  • To distort the original meaning of; to misrepresent. 

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