fife vs warble

fife

noun
  • A small shrill pipe, resembling the piccolo flute, used chiefly to accompany the drum in military music 

verb
  • To play this instrument. 

num
  • Used instead of five in radio communications to avoid confusion with fire. 

warble

noun
  • The sound of one who warbles; singing with trills or modulations. 

  • In naval mine warfare, the process of varying the frequency of sound produced by a narrowband noisemaker to ensure that the frequency to which the mine will respond is covered. 

  • A small hard swelling on a horse's back, caused by the galling of the saddle. 

  • A lesion under the skin of cattle, caused by the larva of a bot fly of genus Hypoderma. 

verb
  • To cause to quaver or vibrate. 

  • To modulate a tone's frequency. 

  • To be quavered or modulated; to be uttered melodiously. 

  • To sing like a bird, especially with trills. 

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