decayed vs musty

decayed

adj
  • Having undergone decay, rotted. 

musty

adj
  • Affected by dampness or mould; damp, mildewed, mouldy. 

  • Characteristic of or relating to mould or mouldiness. 

  • Of attitudes, ideas, writing, or other abstract things: no longer fresh or interesting; outdated, stale. 

  • Having an odour or taste of mould; also (generally), having a stale or unfresh odour or taste. 

  • Of a person: boring and unadventurous; also, old-fashioned, stuck in the past. 

  • Bad-tempered, grumpy, irritable. 

  • Of a male animal such as a camel or an elephant: in musth. 

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