decern vs smell

decern

verb
  • See distinctly (with the eyes or the mind); distinguish (an object or fact); discern. 

  • transferred sense 

  • Decree a person etc. to be or to do something by judicial sentence.  (in the phrase “to decern in”, obsolete) To mulct in by decree of court. 

  • Decree by judicial sentence that something be done. 

  • intransitive 

  • with simple object 

smell

verb
  • To detect or perceive; often with out. 

  • To have a particular tincture or smack of any quality; to savour. 

  • To smell bad; to stink. 

  • Followed by like or of if descriptive: to have a particular smell, whether good or bad. 

  • To sense a smell or smells. 

  • To smell of; to have a smell of 

noun
  • A conclusion or intuition that a situation is wrong, more complex than it seems, or otherwise inappropriate. 

  • A sensation, pleasant or unpleasant, detected by inhaling air (or, the case of water-breathing animals, water) carrying airborne molecules of a substance. 

  • The sense that detects odours. 

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