asperity vs hardness

asperity

noun
  • The quality of being difficult or unpleasant to experience. 

  • The quality of being harsh or severe in the way one speaks or behaves toward people. 

  • An area that protrudes from a surface. 

  • A section of a fault line with high friction, such that there is no movement along this part of the fault except during an earthquake. 

  • The quality of having a rough or uneven surface. 

  • Something that is harsh and difficult to endure. 

hardness

noun
  • An instance of this quality; hardship. 

  • The quality of being hard. 

  • The resistance to scratching, cutting, indentation or abrasion of a metal or other solid material. 

  • The penetrating ability of electromagnetic radiation, such as x-rays; generally, the shorter the wavelength, the harder and more penetrating the radiation. 

  • The measure of resistance to damage of a facility, equipment, installation, or telecommunications infrastructure when subjected to attack. 

  • A measure of how hard a material is 

  • The quantity of calcium carbonate dissolved in water, usually expressed in parts per million (ppm). 

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