decline vs slight

decline

noun
  • The act of declining or refusing something. 

  • A weakening. 

  • Downward movement, fall. 

  • A reduction or diminution of activity. 

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

verb
  • 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 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). 

slight

noun
  • The act of ignoring or snubbing; a deliberate act of neglect or discourtesy. 

adj
  • still; with little or no movement on the surface 

  • Even, smooth or level 

  • not far away in space or time 

  • of slender build 

  • gentle or weak, not aggressive or powerful 

  • not thorough; superficial 

  • trifling; unimportant; insignificant 

verb
  • To act negligently or carelessly. 

  • To treat with disdain or neglect, usually out of prejudice, hatred, or jealousy; to ignore disrespectfully. 

  • To treat as unimportant or not worthy of attention; to make light of. 

  • To render no longer defensible by full or partial demolition. 

  • To give lesser weight or importance to. 

  • To throw heedlessly. 

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