belittle vs diminish

belittle

verb
  • To knowingly say that something is smaller or less important than it actually is, especially as a way of showing contempt or deprecation. 

diminish

verb
  • To become less or smaller. 

  • To taper. 

  • To disappear gradually. 

  • To take away; to subtract. 

  • To make smaller. 

  • To lessen the authority or dignity of; to put down; to degrade; to abase; to weaken; to nerf (in gaming). 

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