brush off vs give someone the brush-off

brush off

verb
  • To disregard (something), to dismiss or ignore (someone), as unimportant. 

  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see brush, off. To remove something with a brush. 

give someone the brush-off

verb
  • To rebuff, snub or curtly reject someone. 

How often have the words brush off and give someone the brush-off occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )