late vs recent

late

adj
  • Not arriving or occurring until after an expected time. 

  • Not having had an expected menstrual period. 

  • Associated with the end of a period. 

  • Levied as a surcharge on a payment received after a deadline. 

  • Deceased, dead: used particularly when speaking of the dead person's actions while alive. (Generally must be preceded by a possessive or an article, commonly "the"; see usage notes. Can itself only precede the person's name, never follow it.) 

  • Existing or holding some position not long ago, but not now; departed, or gone out of office. 

  • Specifically, near the end of the day. 

  • Recent — relative to the noun it modifies. 

  • Near the end of a period of time. 

  • Of a star or class of stars, cooler than the sun. 

adv
  • After a deadline has passed, past a designated time. 

  • Not long ago; just now. 

  • Formerly, especially in the context of service in a military unit. 

noun
  • A shift (scheduled work period) that takes place late in the day or at night. 

recent

adj
  • Having happened a short while ago. 

  • Up-to-date; not old-fashioned or dated. 

  • Particularly in geology, palaeontology, and astronomy: having occurred a relatively short time ago, but still potentially thousands or even millions of years ago. 

  • Having done something a short while ago that distinguishes them as what they are called. 

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