bitter pill vs foiling

bitter pill

noun
  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bitter, pill. 

foiling

noun
  • A foil. 

  • The act by which something is foiled; prevention of success. 

  • The track of game, such as deer, in the grass. 

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