decline vs halt

decline

verb
  • To cause to decrease or diminish. 

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

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

  • 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. 

halt

verb
  • To cause to discontinue. 

  • To be lame, faulty, or defective, as in connection with ideas, or in measure, or in versification. 

  • To bring to a stop. 

  • To limp; move with a limping gait. 

  • To stand in doubt whether to proceed, or what to do; hesitate; be uncertain; linger; delay; mammer. 

  • To falter. 

  • To stop marching. 

  • To stop either temporarily or permanently. 

  • To waver. 

noun
  • A minor railway station (usually unstaffed) in the United Kingdom. 

  • A cessation, either temporary or permanent. 

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