fool vs humbug

fool

verb
  • To trick; to deceive. 

  • To act in an idiotic manner; to act foolishly. 

noun
  • A type of dessert made of puréed fruit and custard or cream. 

  • A jester; a person whose role was to entertain a sovereign and the court (or lower personages). 

  • A person with poor judgment or little intelligence. 

  • A particular card in a tarot deck, representing a jester. 

  • Someone who derives pleasure from something specified. 

  • Buddy, dude, man. 

adj
  • Foolish. 

humbug

verb
  • To play a trick on someone, to cheat, to swindle, to deceive. 

  • To fight; to act tough. 

noun
  • Nonsense. 

  • A type of hard sweet (candy), usually peppermint flavoured with a striped pattern. 

  • A hoax, jest, or prank. 

  • A fight. 

  • A fraud or sham; (uncountable) hypocrisy. 

  • A false arrest on trumped-up charges. 

  • The piglet of the wild boar. 

  • A cheat, fraudster, or hypocrite. 

  • Anything complicated, offensive, troublesome, unpleasant or worrying; a misunderstanding, especially if trivial. 

intj
  • Balderdash!, nonsense!, rubbish! 

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