mace vs sap

mace

verb
  • To hit someone or something with a mace. 

  • To spray in defense or attack with mace (pepper spray or tear gas) using a hand-held device. 

  • To spray a similar noxious chemical in defense or attack using an available hand-held device such as an aerosol spray can. 

noun
  • A heavy fighting club. 

  • A long baton used by some drum majors to keep time and lead a marching band. If this baton is referred to as a mace, by convention it has a ceremonial often decorative head, which, if of metal, usually is hollow and sometimes intricately worked. 

  • A ceremonial form of this weapon. 

  • An officer who carries a mace as a token of authority. 

  • An old money of account in China equal to one tenth of a tael. 

  • An old weight of 57.98 grains. 

  • A spice obtained from the outer layer of the kernel of the fruit of the nutmeg. 

  • A knobbed mallet used by curriers make leather supple when dressing it. 

  • Tear gas or pepper spray, especially for personal use. 

sap

verb
  • To strike with a sap (with a blackjack). 

  • To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of. 

  • To proceed by mining, or by secretly undermining; to execute saps. 

  • To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken. 

  • To gradually weaken. 

  • To exhaust the vitality of. 

  • To pierce with saps. 

  • To drain, suck or absorb from (tree, etc.). 

noun
  • A narrow ditch or trench made from the foremost parallel toward the glacis or covert way of a besieged place by digging under cover of gabions, etc. 

  • The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree. 

  • The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition. 

  • Vitality. 

  • A naive person; a simpleton 

  • Any juice. 

  • A short wooden club; a leather-covered hand weapon; a blackjack. 

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