climb vs descend

climb

verb
  • To move (especially up and down something) by gripping with the hands and using the feet. 

  • To mount; to move upwards on. 

  • To move to a higher position on the social ladder. 

  • to jump high 

  • Of plants, to grow upwards by clinging to something. 

  • to practise the sport of climbing 

  • To scale; to get to the top of something. 

  • To ascend; rise; to go up. 

noun
  • The act of getting to somewhere more elevated. 

  • An upwards struggle 

  • An act of climbing. 

descend

verb
  • To pass from a higher to a lower place; to move downwards; to come or go down in any way, for example by falling, flowing, walking, climbing etc. 

  • To move toward the south, or to the southward. 

  • To fall in pitch; to pass from a higher to a lower tone. 

  • to proceed by generation or by transmission; to happen by inheritance. 

  • To go down upon or along; to pass from a higher to a lower part of 

  • to be derived (from) 

  • To enter mentally; to retire. 

  • To come down, as from a source, original, or stock 

  • To come down to a lower, less fortunate, humbler, less virtuous, or worse, state or rank; to lower or abase oneself 

  • To make an attack, or incursion, as if from a vantage ground; to come suddenly and with violence. 

  • And on the suitors let thy wrath descend. 

  • To pass from the more general or important to the specific or less important matters to be considered. 

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