decline vs retract

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. 

retract

verb
  • To draw back; to draw up; to withdraw. 

  • To avert (one's eyes or a gaze). 

  • To decline or fail to do something promised; to break one's word. 

  • To pull (something) back or back inside. 

  • Of something said or written (such as published academic work): to take back or withdraw. 

  • To draw (an extended body part) back into the body. 

  • To take back or withdraw (something that has been said or written); to disavow, to repudiate. 

  • Originally in chess and now in other games as well: to take back or undo (a move); specifically (card games) to take back or withdraw (a card which has been played). 

  • To break or fail to keep (a promise, etc.); to renege. 

  • To pronounce (a sound, especially a vowel) farther to the back of the vocal tract. 

  • To cancel or take back (something, such as an edict or a favour or grant previously bestowed); to rescind, to revoke. 

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