descend vs fall

descend

verb
  • To go down upon or along; to pass from a higher to a lower part of 

  • To move toward the south, or to the southward. 

  • To fall in pitch; to pass from a higher to a lower tone. 

  • to proceed by generation or by transmission; to happen by inheritance. 

  • to be derived (from) 

  • To pass from a higher to a lower place; to move downwards; to come or go down in any way, for example by falling, flowing, walking, climbing etc. 

  • To enter mentally; to retire. 

  • To come down, as from a source, original, or stock 

  • To come down to a lower, less fortunate, humbler, less virtuous, or worse, state or rank; to lower or abase oneself 

  • To make an attack, or incursion, as if from a vantage ground; to come suddenly and with violence. 

  • And on the suitors let thy wrath descend. 

  • To pass from the more general or important to the specific or less important matters to be considered. 

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 descend and fall occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )