coddle vs fritter

coddle

noun
  • An Irish dish comprising layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and bacon rashers with sliced potatoes and onions. 

verb
  • To exercise excessive or damaging authority in an attempt to protect. To overprotect. 

  • To treat gently or with great care. 

  • To cook slowly in hot water that is below the boiling point. 

fritter

noun
  • A dish made by deep-frying food coated in batter. 

  • A fragment; a shred; a small piece. 

verb
  • To break into small pieces or fragments. 

  • To cut (meat etc.) into small pieces for frying. 

  • To sinter. 

  • To squander or waste time, money, or other resources; e.g. occupy oneself idly or without clear purpose, to tinker with an unimportant part of a project, to dally, sometimes as a form of procrastination. 

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