cringe vs wince

cringe

noun
  • A gesture or posture of cringing (recoiling or shrinking). 

  • An act or disposition of servile obeisance. 

  • A crick (“painful muscular cramp or spasm of some part of the body”). 

  • Awkwardness or embarrassment which causes an onlooker to cringe; cringeworthiness. 

adj
  • Inducing awkwardness, embarrassment, or secondhand embarrassment; cringemaking, cringeworthy, cringy. 

verb
  • To experience an inward feeling of disgust, embarrassment, or fear; (by extension) to feel very embarrassed. 

  • To cower, flinch, recoil, shrink, or tense, as in disgust, embarrassment, or fear. 

  • To bow or crouch in servility. 

  • To act in an obsequious or servile manner. 

wince

noun
  • A sudden movement or gesture of shrinking away. 

  • A reel used in dyeing, steeping, or washing cloth; a winch. It is placed over the division wall between two wince pits so as to allow the cloth to descend into either compartment at will. 

verb
  • To wash (cloth), dip it in dye, etc., with the use of a wince. 

  • To flinch as if in pain or distress. 

  • To kick or flounce when unsteady or impatient. 

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