fritter vs mite

fritter

noun
  • A fragment; a shred; a small piece. 

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

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. 

mite

noun
  • Anything very small; a minute object; a very little quantity or particle. 

  • A lepton, a small coin used in Palestine in the time of Christ. 

  • A small coin formerly circulated in England, rated at about a third of a farthing. 

  • A small weight; one twentieth of a grain. 

  • Any of many minute arachnids which, along with the ticks, comprise subclass Acarina (aka Acari). 

  • A small or naughty person, or one people take pity on; rascal. 

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