axe vs prune

axe

verb
  • To lay off, terminate or drastically reduce, especially in a rough or ruthless manner; to cancel. 

  • To furnish with an axle. 

  • To fell or chop with an axe. 

noun
  • A position, interest, or reason in buying and selling stock, often with ulterior motives. 

  • An ancient weapon consisting of a head that has one or two blades and a long handle. 

  • A dismissal or rejection. 

  • A tool for felling trees or chopping wood etc. consisting of a heavy head flattened to a blade on one side, and a handle attached to it. 

  • A drastic reduction or cutback. 

  • A gigging musician's particular instrument, especially a guitar in rock music or a saxophone in jazz. 

prune

verb
  • To cut down or shorten (by the removal of unnecessary material). 

  • To remove excess material from a tree or shrub; to trim, especially to make more healthy or productive. 

  • To remove unnecessary branches from a tree data structure. 

  • To become wrinkled like a dried plum, as the fingers and toes do when kept submerged in water. 

noun
  • The dried, wrinkled fruit of certain species of plum. 

  • Something wrinkly like a prune. 

  • An old woman, especially a wrinkly one. 

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