attrit vs soft-pedal

attrit

verb
  • To engage in attrition; to quit or drop out. 

  • To be reduced in quantity through attrition. 

  • To lose, or to kill, troops by attrition due to sustained firepower. 

  • To wear down through attrition, especially mechanical attrition. 

noun
  • One who voluntarily or involuntarily leaves a company; a termed employee. 

soft-pedal

verb
  • Chiefly followed by on: to act in a less assertive or forceful manner. 

  • To attempt to persuade someone about (something) through understatement, so that the listener accepts the good points as obvious. 

  • To reduce the force or impact of (something); to damp, to mute; especially, to minimize the less desirable aspects of (something); to play down, to tone down. 

  • To reduce the volume of (music, a sound, etc.). 

How often have the words attrit and soft-pedal occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )