brush vs defile

brush

verb
  • To touch with a sweeping motion, or lightly in passing. 

  • To clean with a brush. 

  • To untangle or arrange with a brush. 

  • To apply with a brush. 

  • To clean one's teeth by brushing them. 

  • To remove with a sweeping motion. 

noun
  • An instrument, resembling a brush, used to produce a soft sound from drums or cymbals. 

  • An on-screen tool for "painting" a particular colour or texture. 

  • A set of defined design and parameters that produce drawn strokes of a certain texture and quality. 

  • A tuft of hair on the mandibles. 

  • Evergreen boughs, especially balsam, locally cut and baled for export, usually for use in making wreaths. 

  • In 3D video games, a convex polyhedron, especially one that defines structure of the play area. 

  • The floorperson of a poker room, usually in a casino. 

  • A short and sometimes occasional encounter or experience. 

  • A piece of conductive material, usually carbon, serving to maintain electrical contact between the stationary and rotating parts of a machine. 

  • An implement consisting of multiple more or less flexible bristles or other filaments attached to a handle, used for any of various purposes including cleaning, painting, and arranging hair. 

  • The act of brushing something. 

  • Wild vegetation, generally larger than grass but smaller than trees. See shrubland. 

  • The furry tail of an animal, especially of a fox. 

  • A brush-like electrical discharge of sparks. 

defile

verb
  • To make (someone or something) physically dirty or unclean; to befoul, to soil. 

  • Synonym of defilade (“to fortify (something) as a protection from enfilading fire”) 

  • To act inappropriately towards or vandalize (something sacred or special); to desecrate, to profane. 

  • To make (someone or something) morally impure or unclean; to corrupt, to tarnish. 

  • To cause (something or someone) to become ritually unclean. 

noun
  • A narrow passage or way (originally (military), one which soldiers could only march through in a single file or line), especially a narrow gorge or pass between mountains. 

  • A single file of soldiers; (by extension) any single file. 

  • An act of marching in files or lines. 

  • An act of defilading a fortress or other place, or of raising the exterior works in order to protect the interior. 

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