grind down vs waste away

grind down

verb
  • To weaken someone's morale over a long period. 

  • To make something hard smaller and smoother by gradually rubbing off tiny bits, to wear down. 

waste away

verb
  • To lose energy and/or become weak and feeble. 

How often have the words grind down and waste away occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )