kick around vs nick

kick around

noun
  • An informal game of football, rugby or similar sports. 

verb
  • To wander loose; to float around; to hang around. 

  • To be discussed informally; to be considered. 

  • To abuse or mistreat; to bully; to be rough with. 

nick

noun
  • A small deflection of the ball off the edge of the bat, often going to the wicket-keeper for a catch. 

  • The point where the wall of the court meets the floor. 

  • One of the single-stranded DNA segments produced during nick translation. 

  • Often in the expressions in bad nick and in good nick: condition, state. 

  • A police station or prison. 

verb
  • To make a cut at the side of the face. 

  • To make a nick or notch in; to cut or scratch in a minor way. 

  • To make ragged or uneven, as by cutting nicks or notches in; to deface, to mar. 

  • To steal. 

  • To arrest. 

  • To make a crosscut or cuts on the underside of (the tail of a horse, in order to make the animal carry it higher). 

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