better than nothing vs lifeless

better than nothing

adj
  • Barely useful; almost worthless or pointless, but nevertheless better than having nothing at all. 

lifeless

adj
  • dull or lacking vitality 

  • inanimate; having no life 

  • dead; having lost life 

  • uninhabited, or incapable of supporting life 

How often have the words better than nothing and lifeless occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )