dead-end vs mute

dead-end

adj
  • Going nowhere; blocked. 

noun
  • A road with no exit. 

  • A position that offers no hope of progress. 

verb
  • To come to a dead-end. 

mute

adj
  • Silent; not making a sound. 

  • Not giving a ringing sound when struck; said of a metal. 

  • Not uttered; unpronounced; silent; also, produced by complete closure of the mouth organs which interrupt the passage of breath; said of certain letters. 

  • Not having the power of speech; dumb. 

noun
  • An electronic switch or control that mutes the sound. 

  • A person who does not have the power of speech. 

  • A hired mourner at a funeral; an undertaker's assistant. 

  • A mute swan. 

  • The faeces of a hawk or falcon. 

  • An object for dulling the sound of an instrument, especially a brass instrument, or damper for pianoforte; a sordine. 

verb
  • To silence, to make quiet. 

  • To turn off the sound of. 

  • To cast off; to moult. 

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