decline vs ebb

decline

verb
  • To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw. 

  • To choose not to do something; refuse, forbear, refrain. 

  • To run through from first to last; to recite in order as though declining a noun. 

  • To cause to decrease or diminish. 

  • To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall. 

  • To move downwards, to fall, to drop. 

  • To inflect for case, number, gender, and the like. 

  • To reject a penalty against the opposing team, usually because the result of accepting it would benefit the non-penalized team less than the preceding play. 

  • To become weaker or worse. 

  • To recite all the different declined forms of (a word). 

noun
  • A weakening. 

  • Downward movement, fall. 

  • A reduction or diminution of activity. 

  • The act of declining or refusing something. 

  • A sloping downward, e.g. of a hill or road. 

ebb

verb
  • to fall away or decline 

  • to fish with stakes and nets that serve to prevent the fish from getting back into the sea with the ebb 

  • To cause to flow back. 

  • to flow back or recede 

adj
  • low, shallow 

noun
  • A European bunting, the corn bunting (Emberiza calandra, syns. Emberiza miliaria, Milaria calandra). 

  • The receding movement of the tide. 

  • A gradual decline. 

  • A low state; a state of depression. 

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