masquerade vs tell

masquerade

noun
  • An act of living under false pretenses; a concealment of something by a false or unreal show; a disguise, a pretence; also, a pretentious display. 

  • The act of wearing a mask or dressing up in a costume for, or as if for, a masquerade ball. 

  • An assembly of varied, often fanciful, things. 

  • An assembly or party of people wearing (usually elaborate or fanciful) masks and costumes, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions. 

  • A cosplay event at which costumed attendees perform skits. 

verb
  • To conceal (someone) with, or as if with, a mask; to disguise. 

  • To take part in a masquerade; to assemble in masks and costumes; (loosely) to wear a disguise. 

  • To pass off as a different person or a person with qualities that one does not possess; also, to make a pretentious show of being what one is not. 

tell

noun
  • A reflexive, often habitual behavior, especially one occurring in a context that often features attempts at deception by persons under psychological stress (such as a poker game or police interrogation), that reveals information that the person exhibiting the behavior is attempting to withhold. 

  • A private message to an individual in a chat room; a whisper. 

  • A hill or mound, originally and especially in the Middle East, over or consisting of the ruins of ancient settlements. 

verb
  • To order; to direct, to say to someone. 

  • To instruct or inform. 

  • To narrate. 

  • To reveal. 

  • To convey by speech; to say. 

  • To reveal information in prose through outright expository statement -- contrasted with show 

  • To count, reckon, or enumerate. 

  • To have an effect, especially a noticeable one; to be apparent, to be demonstrated. 

  • To inform someone in authority about a wrongdoing. 

  • To discern, notice, identify or distinguish. 

  • To be revealed. 

  • To use (beads or similar objects) as an aid to prayer. 

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