combine vs couple

combine

verb
  • To bring (two or more things or activities) together; to unite. 

  • To have two or more things or properties that function together. 

  • In the game of casino, to play a card which will take two or more cards whose aggregate number of pips equals those of the card played. 

  • To come together; to unite. 

noun
  • Especially, a joint enterprise of whatever legal form for a purpose of business or in any way promoting the interests of the participants, sometimes with monopolistic or fraudulent intentions. 

  • An artwork falling between painting and sculpture, having objects embedded into a painted surface. 

  • An industrial conglomeration in a socialist country, particularly in the former Soviet bloc. 

  • A Test match in which applicants play in the hope of earning a position on a professional football team. 

  • A combine harvester 

couple

verb
  • To join (two things) together, or (one thing) to (another). 

  • To cause (two animals) to copulate, to bring (two animals) together for mating. 

  • To join in sexual intercourse; to copulate. 

det
  • Two or a few, a small number of. 

adj
  • Two or (a) small number of. 

noun
  • A small number. 

  • That which joins or links two things together; a bond or tie; a coupler. 

  • A couple-close. 

  • Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship. 

  • One of the pairs of plates of two metals which compose a voltaic battery, called a voltaic couple or galvanic couple. 

  • Two of the same kind connected or considered together. 

  • A turning effect created by forces that sum to zero in magnitude but produce a non-zero external torque. 

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