kick someone when they are down vs mess

kick someone when they are down

verb
  • To make things worse for someone who is going through a difficult time. 

mess

verb
  • To throw into disorder or to ruin. 

  • To eat (with others). 

  • To make soiled by ejaculating. 

  • To screw around with, to bother, to be annoying to. 

  • To supply with a mess. 

  • To belong to a mess. 

  • To make soiled by defecating. 

  • To take meals with a mess. 

  • To interfere. 

noun
  • A disagreeable mixture or confusion of things; hence, a situation resulting from blundering or from misunderstanding. 

  • A building or room in which mess is eaten. 

  • A number of persons who eat together, and for whom food is prepared in common, especially military personnel who eat at the same table. 

  • The milk given by a cow at one milking. 

  • A large quantity or number. 

  • Excrement. 

  • A person in a state of (especially emotional) turmoil or disarray; an emotional wreck. 

  • A dessert of fruit and cream, similar to a fool. 

  • A group of iguanas. 

  • A set of four (from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner). 

How often have the words kick someone when they are down and mess occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )