dragnet vs trawl

dragnet

verb
  • To drag a net across the bottom of a body of water. 

  • To make heightened efforts to catch a suspect. 

noun
  • Heightened efforts by law-enforcement personnel to capture suspects. 

  • A net dragged across the bottom of a body of water. 

trawl

verb
  • To fish from a slow-moving boat. 

  • To take (fish or other marine animals) with a trawl. 

  • To make an exhaustive search for something within a defined area. 

noun
  • A long fishing line having many short lines bearing hooks attached to it; a setline. 

  • A net or dragnet used for trawling. 

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