den vs rathole

den

noun
  • A squalid or wretched place; a haunt. 

  • Synonym of fort (“structure improvised from furniture, etc. for playing games.”) 

  • A comfortable room not used for formal entertaining. 

  • A group of Cub Scouts of the same age who work on projects together. 

  • A small cavern or hollow place in the side of a hill, or among rocks; especially, a cave used by a wild animal for shelter or concealment. 

verb
  • To ensconce or hide oneself in (or as in) a den. 

rathole

noun
  • A particularly squalid human residence. 

  • A pigeonhole. 

  • An entrance to a living area or passageway used by mice or rats. 

  • A living area used by mice or rats, or a similar living area used by other animals. 

  • An area of a silo that has undergone ratholing, so that material moves mostly through the centre and accumulates around the edges. 

verb
  • (of material) to empty only in the center of a hopper or silo, persisting circumferentially. 

  • to take a conversation off topic, especially in technical meetings. 

  • to hoard. 

  • to surreptitiously or prematurely remove chips during a poker game. 

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