joke vs lark

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. 

lark

noun
  • A prank. 

  • Any of various similar-appearing birds, but usually ground-living, such as the meadowlark and titlark. 

  • One who wakes early; one who is up with the larks. 

  • A romp, frolic, some fun. 

  • Any of various small, singing passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. 

verb
  • To catch larks (type of bird). 

  • To sport, engage in harmless pranking. 

  • To frolic, engage in carefree adventure. 

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