decay vs slump

decay

verb
  • To deteriorate, to get worse, to lose strength or health, to decline in quality. 

  • To undergo bit rot, that is, gradual degradation. 

  • To undergo optical decay, that is, to relax to a less excited state, usually by emitting a photon or phonon. 

  • Loss of airspeed due to drag. 

  • To undergo software rot, that is, to fail to be updated in a changing environment, so as to eventually become legacy or obsolete. 

  • To change by undergoing fission, by emitting radiation, or by capturing or losing one or more electrons; to undergo radioactive decay. 

  • To cause to rot or deteriorate. 

  • Of an array: to lose its type and dimensions and be reduced to a pointer, for example when passed to a function. 

  • To rot, to go bad. 

  • To undergo prolonged reduction in altitude (above the orbited body). 

noun
  • The process or result of being gradually decomposed. 

  • A deterioration of condition; loss of status or fortune. 

  • The situation, in programming languages such as C, where an array loses its type and dimensions and is reduced to a pointer, for example by passing it to a function. 

slump

verb
  • To decline or fall off in activity or performance. 

  • To cause to collapse; to hit hard; to render unsconscious; to kill. 

  • To collapse heavily or helplessly. 

  • To lump; to throw together messily. 

  • To fall or sink suddenly through or in, when walking on a surface, as on thawing snow or ice, a bog, etc. 

  • To slouch or droop. 

noun
  • A period when a person goes without the expected amount of sex or dating. 

  • A measure of the fluidity of freshly mixed concrete, based on how much the concrete formed in a standard slump cone sags when the cone is removed. 

  • The gross amount; the mass; the lump. 

  • A boggy place. 

  • A heavy or helpless collapse; a slouching or drooping posture; a period of poor activity or performance, especially an extended period. 

  • The noise made by anything falling into a hole, or into a soft, miry place. 

  • A cobbler-like dessert cooked on a stove. 

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