crucial vs life-or-death

crucial

adj
  • Essential or decisive for determining the outcome or future of something; extremely important; vital. 

  • Very good; excellent; particularly applied to reggae music. 

life-or-death

adj
  • Of critical importance to the success of a particular endeavor. 

  • Having death as a possible or even likely outcome; perilous. 

  • Of critical importance to the survival of a living organism. 

How often have the words crucial and life-or-death occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )