bent vs decline

bent

noun
  • A declivity or slope, as of a hill. 

  • A predisposition to act or react in a particular way. 

  • The state of being curved, crooked, or inclined from a straight line; flexure; curvity. 

  • Tension; force of acting; energy; impetus. 

  • Particular direction or tendency; flexion; course. 

  • Such a subunit as a component of a barn's framing, joined to other bents by girts and summer beams. 

  • Such a subunit as a reinforcement to, or integral part of, a bridge's framing. 

  • Any of various stiff or reedy grasses. 

  • A grassy area, grassland. 

  • The old dried stalks of grasses. 

  • An inclination or talent. 

adj
  • Homosexual. 

  • Inaccurately aimed. 

  • Suffering from the bends. 

  • Corrupt, dishonest. 

  • Determined or insistent. 

  • Folded, dented. 

  • High from both marijuana and alcohol. 

  • leading a life of crime. 

decline

noun
  • A sloping downward, e.g. of a hill or road. 

  • A weakening. 

  • Downward movement, fall. 

  • A reduction or diminution of activity. 

  • The act of declining or refusing something. 

verb
  • To choose not to do something; refuse, forbear, refrain. 

  • To run through from first to last; to recite in order as though declining a noun. 

  • To cause to decrease or diminish. 

  • To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall. 

  • To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw. 

  • To move downwards, to fall, to drop. 

  • To inflect for case, number, gender, and the like. 

  • To reject a penalty against the opposing team, usually because the result of accepting it would benefit the non-penalized team less than the preceding play. 

  • To become weaker or worse. 

  • To recite all the different declined forms of (a word). 

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