defile vs filter

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. 

filter

verb
  • To sort, sift, or isolate. 

  • To move slowly or gradually; to come or go a few at a time. 

  • To pass through a filter or to act as though passing through a filter. 

  • To diffuse; to cause to be less concentrated or focused. 

  • To ride a motorcycle between lanes on a road 

noun
  • self-restraint in speech. 

  • A device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance; any device that separates one substance from another. 

  • A non-empty upper set (of a partially ordered set) which is closed under binary infima (a.k.a. meets). 

  • Any item, mechanism, device or procedure that acts to separate or isolate. 

  • A translucent object placed in the light path of a camera to remove certain wavelengths (colors), or a computer program that simulates such an effect. 

  • Electronics or software that separates unwanted signals (for example noise) from wanted signals or that attenuates selected frequencies. 

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