drop away vs slacken

drop away

verb
  • To become less or fewer. 

slacken

verb
  • To gradually decrease in intensity or tautness; to become slack. 

  • To make slack, less taut, or less intense. 

  • To deprive of cohesion by combining chemically with water; to slake. 

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