fizzle vs wheeze

fizzle

noun
  • A spluttering or hissing sound. 

  • Failure of an exploding nuclear bomb to meet its expected yield during testing. 

  • An abortive effort; a flop or dud. 

  • A state of agitation or worry. 

verb
  • To fail to generate the expected yield when exploded during testing. 

  • To decay or die off to nothing; to burn out; to end less successfully than previously hoped. 

  • To sputter or hiss. 

wheeze

noun
  • A piping or whistling sound caused by difficult respiration. 

  • An ordinary whisper exaggerated so as to produce the hoarse sound known as the "stage whisper"; a forcible whisper with some admixture of tone. 

  • Something very humorous or laughable. 

  • An ulterior scheme or plan. 

  • A sound that resembles a human wheezing. 

verb
  • To breathe hard, and with an audible piping or whistling sound, as persons affected with asthma. 

  • To convulse with laughter; to become breathless due to intense laughing. 

  • To make a sound that resembles the sound of human wheezing. 

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