crumble vs fall to pieces

crumble

verb
  • To fall apart; to disintegrate. 

  • To break into crumbs. 

  • To mix (ingredients such as flour and butter) in such a way as to form crumbs. 

noun
  • A dessert of British origin containing stewed fruit topped with a crumbly mixture of fat, flour, and sugar. 

fall to pieces

verb
  • To break into a number of segments; to collapse. 

  • To be emotionally devastated; to break down. 

How often have the words crumble and fall to pieces occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )