antic vs joke

antic

noun
  • A caricature. 

  • A pose, often exaggerated, in anticipation of an action; for example, a brief squat before jumping 

  • A grotesque performer or clown, buffoon. 

  • A ludicrous gesture or act; ridiculous behaviour; caper. 

verb
  • To perform (an action) as an antic; to mimic ridiculously. 

  • To perform antics, to caper. 

adj
  • Playful, funny, absurd. 

  • Grotesque, incongruous. 

joke

noun
  • An amusing story. 

  • The root cause or main issue, especially an unexpected one 

  • A laughably worthless thing or person; a sham. 

  • Something that is far easier or far less challenging than expected. 

  • Something said or done for amusement, not in seriousness. 

verb
  • To do or say something for amusement rather than seriously. 

  • To dupe in a friendly manner for amusement; to mess with, play with. 

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