decline vs fall

decline

verb
  • To move downwards, to fall, to drop. 

  • To choose not to do something; refuse, forbear, refrain. 

  • To run through from first to last; to recite in order as though declining a noun. 

  • To cause to decrease or diminish. 

  • To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall. 

  • To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw. 

  • To inflect for case, number, gender, and the like. 

  • To reject a penalty against the opposing team, usually because the result of accepting it would benefit the non-penalized team less than the preceding play. 

  • To become weaker or worse. 

  • To recite all the different declined forms of (a word). 

noun
  • A weakening. 

  • Downward movement, fall. 

  • A reduction or diminution of activity. 

  • The act of declining or refusing something. 

  • A sloping downward, e.g. of a hill or road. 

fall

verb
  • To come down, to drop or descend. 

  • To collapse; to be overthrown or defeated. 

  • To assume a look of shame or disappointment; to become or appear dejected; said of the face. 

  • To come as if by dropping down. 

  • To begin with haste, ardour, or vehemence; to rush or hurry. 

  • To occur (on a certain day of the week, date, or similar); to happen. 

  • To become. 

  • To move to a lower position under the effect of gravity. 

  • To happen; to come to pass; to chance or light (upon). 

  • To be dropped or uttered carelessly. 

  • To be brought to the ground. 

  • To die, especially in battle or by disease. 

  • To become lower (in quantity, pitch, etc.). 

  • To hang down (under the influence of gravity). 

  • To come to the ground deliberately, to prostrate oneself. 

  • To become ensnared or entrapped; to be worse off than before. 

  • To be allotted to; to arrive through chance, fate, or inheritance. 

  • To descend in character or reputation; to become degraded; to sink into vice, error, or sin. 

intj
  • The cry given when a whale is sighted, or harpooned. 

noun
  • A reduction in quantity, pitch, etc. 

  • The action of a batsman being out. 

  • The part of the rope of a tackle to which the power is applied in hoisting (usu. plural). 

  • An old Scots unit of measure equal to six ells. 

  • The act of moving to a lower position under the effect of gravity. 

  • An instance of a wrestler being pinned to the mat. 

  • A short, flexible piece of leather forming part of a bullwhip, placed between the thong and the cracker. 

  • The lid, on a piano, that covers the keyboard 

  • A defect in the ice which causes stones thrown into an area to drift in a given direction. 

  • A hairpiece for women consisting of long strands of hair on a woven backing, intended primarily to cover hair loss. 

  • Blame or punishment for a failure or misdeed. 

  • The chasing of a hunted whale. 

  • A loss of greatness or status. 

  • That which falls or cascades. 

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