contracting vs withering

contracting

noun
  • The act of something that contracts or shrinks; contraction. 

  • Work done on a contract basis. 

adj
  • Getting smaller; drawing itself together into a smaller area. 

withering

noun
  • The process by which something withers. 

adj
  • Tending to destroy, devastate, overwhelm, or cause complete destruction. 

  • Diminishing rapidly. 

  • Tending to make someone feel small; scornful in a mortifying way. 

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