drag through the mire vs smirch

drag through the mire

smirch

noun
  • A chirp of radiation power from an astronomical body that has a smeared appearance on its plot in the time-frequency plane (usually associated with massive bodies orbiting supermassive black holes) 

  • A stain on somebody's reputation. 

  • Dirt, or a stain. 

verb
  • To harm the reputation of; to smear or slander. 

  • To dirty; to make dirty. 

How often have the words drag through the mire and smirch occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )