die off vs drain away

die off

verb
  • To become defunct or nonexistent. 

  • To suffer a series of deaths; to die one by one; to progressively become extinct. (If a group of plants, animals, or people dies off, the entire group dies over a period of time.) 

  • Of music, noise, etc., to reduce in volume until no longer audible. 

drain away

verb
  • To diminish over time; to disappear or leak out gradually. 

How often have the words die off and drain away occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )