faint vs shimmer

faint

noun
  • The state of one who has fainted; a swoon. 

  • The act of fainting, syncope. 

verb
  • To decay; to disappear; to vanish. 

  • To lose consciousness through a lack of oxygen or nutrients to the brain, usually as a result of suddenly reduced blood flow (may be caused by emotional trauma, loss of blood or various medical conditions). 

  • To lose courage or spirit; to become depressed or despondent. 

adj
  • Lacking strength; weak; languid; inclined to lose consciousness 

  • Performed, done, or acted, weakly; not exhibiting vigor, strength, or energy 

  • Slight; minimal. 

  • Barely perceptible; not bright, or loud, or sharp 

  • Lacking courage, spirit, or energy; cowardly; dejected 

shimmer

noun
  • A faint or veiled and tremulous gleam or shining. 

  • A measure of the irregularities in the loudness of a particular pitch over time. 

  • A thin electronic device that is fit inside a card reader, such as on automated teller machines (ATMs), or point-of-sale terminals (POS's), that acts as an intermediate interface between the chip on a chip-and-pin technology card and the chip reader of the machine, to allow one to clone the chip. 

verb
  • To shine tremulously or intermittently; to gleam faintly. 

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