joke vs tease

joke

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

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

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. 

tease

verb
  • To poke fun at, either cruelly or affectionately. 

  • To separate the fibres of (a fibrous material). 

  • To entice, tempt. 

  • To show as forthcoming, in the manner of a teaser. 

  • To comb (originally with teasels) so that the fibres all lie in one direction. 

  • To provoke or disturb; to annoy. 

  • To manipulate or influence the behavior of, especially by repeated acts of irritation. 

  • To backcomb. 

noun
  • A single act of teasing. 

  • One who teases. 

  • One who deliberately arouses others (usually men) sexually with no intention of satisfying that arousal. 

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