gaffe vs misstep

gaffe

noun
  • A foolish and embarrassing error, especially one made in public. 

misstep

noun
  • An error or mistake. 

  • A step that is wrong, a false step. 

verb
  • To step badly or incorrectly. 

  • To make an error or mistake. 

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