decline vs rub

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. 

rub

verb
  • To hinder; to cross; to thwart. 

  • To scour; to burnish; to polish; to brighten; to cleanse; often with up or over. 

  • To move (one object) while maintaining contact with another object over some area, with pressure and friction. 

  • To touch the jack with the bowl. 

  • To be rubbed against something. 

  • To rub something against (a second thing). 

  • To spread a substance thinly over; to smear. 

noun
  • A loan. 

  • An act of rubbing. 

  • In the game of crown green bowls, any obstacle by which a bowl is diverted from its normal course. 

  • Any substance designed to be applied by rubbing. 

  • A mixture of spices applied to meat before it is barbecued. 

  • A difficulty or problem. 

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