foray vs sortie

foray

noun
  • A brief excursion or attempt, especially outside one's accustomed sphere. 

  • A sudden or irregular incursion in border warfare; hence, any irregular incursion for war or spoils; a raid. 

verb
  • To participate in a foray. 

  • To do or attempt something outside one's typical area of expertise. 

sortie

noun
  • An act of trying to enter a new field of activity. 

  • An operational flight carried out by a spacecraft involving a return to Earth. 

  • An operational flight carried out by a single military aircraft. 

  • An act of venturing out to do a task, etc. 

  • An attack made by troops from a besieged position; a sally. 

  • An attacking move. 

  • Synonym of sally port (“an entry to or opening into a fortification to enable a sally”) 

  • A series of aerial photographs taken during the flight of an aircraft; (by extension) a photography session. 

verb
  • To carry out a sortie; to sally. 

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