belt-tightening vs decrease

belt-tightening

noun
  • A reduction in expenditure, often as a result of financial restrictions. 

adj
  • Causing or involving a reduction in expenditure. 

decrease

noun
  • An amount by which a quantity is decreased. 

  • A reduction in the number of stitches, usually accomplished by suspending the stitch to be decreased from another existing stitch or by knitting it together with another stitch. See Decrease (knitting). 

verb
  • Of a quantity, to become smaller. 

  • To make (a quantity) smaller. 

How often have the words belt-tightening and decrease occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )