dismay vs distress

dismay

verb
  • To cause to feel apprehension; great sadness, or fear; to deprive of energy 

  • To take dismay or fright; to be filled with dismay. 

  • To render lifeless; to subdue; to disquiet. 

noun
  • A sudden or complete loss of courage and firmness in the face of trouble or danger; overwhelming and disabling terror; a sinking of the spirits 

  • Condition fitted to dismay; ruin. 

distress

verb
  • To cause strain or anxiety to someone. 

  • To treat a new object to give it an appearance of age. 

  • To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain. 

noun
  • A cause of such discomfort. 

  • The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction. 

  • Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature. 

  • Serious danger. 

  • A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt. 

  • An aversive state of stress to which a person cannot fully adapt. 

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