clinquant vs gleam

clinquant

noun
  • Tinsel; glitter. 

  • Dutch metal. 

adj
  • Glittery; gleaming; sparkling; dressed in, or overlaid with, tinsel finery. 

gleam

noun
  • A look of joy or liveliness on one's face. 

  • A bright, but intermittent or short-lived, appearance of something. 

  • An appearance of light, especially one which is indistinct or small, or short-lived. 

  • An indistinct sign of something; a glimpse or hint. 

verb
  • Chiefly in conjunction with an adverb: to cause (light) to shine. 

  • To shine, especially in an indistinct or intermittent manner; to glisten, to glitter. 

  • To be strongly but briefly apparent. 

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