bargain basement vs dead-end

bargain basement

noun
  • Of poor quality; of little or no value; low-end, shoddy. 

  • Inexpensive. 

  • An area within a retail store, especially an area located below ground level, where the least costly merchandise can be found. 

dead-end

noun
  • A position that offers no hope of progress. 

  • A road with no exit. 

verb
  • To come to a dead-end. 

adj
  • Going nowhere; blocked. 

How often have the words bargain basement and dead-end occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )