braise vs smother

braise

verb
  • To cook in a small amount of liquid, in a covered pan, somewhere between steaming and boiling. 

noun
  • A sauce used for braising. 

  • A dish (usually meat) prepared by braising. 

  • Pagellus bogaraveo, syn. Pagellus centrodontus (sea bream) 

smother

verb
  • To cook in a close dish. 

  • to burn very slowly for want of air; smolder. 

  • To suffocate; stifle; obstruct, more or less completely, the respiration of something or someone. 

  • To reduce to a low degree of vigor or activity; suppress or do away with; extinguish 

  • To extinguish or deaden, as fire, by covering, overlaying, or otherwise excluding the air. 

  • To get in the way of a kick of the ball, preventing it going very far. When a player is kicking the ball, an opponent who is close enough will reach out with his hands and arms to get over the top of it, so the ball hits his hands after leaving the kicker's boot, dribbling away. 

  • To be suffocated. 

  • to perish, grow feeble, or decline, by suppression or concealment; be stifled; be suppressed or concealed. 

  • To get in the way of a kick of the ball. 

  • To breathe with great difficulty by reason of smoke, dust, close covering or wrapping, or the like. 

  • To prevent the development of an opponent's attack by one's arm positioning. 

  • To daub or smear. 

noun
  • Cookware used in such cooking. 

  • Smoldering; slow combustion. 

  • The act of smothering a kick (see verb section). 

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