life-or-death vs primal

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. 

primal

adj
  • Of greatest importance; primary. 

  • Being the first in time or in history. 

  • Being one of the pieces of meat initially separated from the carcass during butchering, prior to division into smaller cuts. 

noun
  • A primal cut (of meat). 

verb
  • To take part in primal therapy. 

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