merit vs washout

merit

verb
  • To be deserving or worthy. 

  • To deserve, to earn. 

noun
  • Usually in the plural form the merits: the substantive rightness or wrongness of a legal argument, a lawsuit, etc., as opposed to technical matters such as the admissibility of evidence or points of legal procedure; (by extension) the overall good or bad quality, or rightness or wrongness, of some other thing. 

  • A claim to commendation or a reward. 

  • A mark or token of approbation or to recognize excellence. 

  • Something deserving or worthy of positive recognition or reward. 

  • The sum of all the good deeds that a person does which determines the quality of the person's next state of existence and contributes to the person's growth towards enlightenment. 

washout

noun
  • An overwhelming victory; a landslide. 

  • An appliance designed to wash something out. 

  • The cleaning of matter from a physiological system using a fluid. 

  • The cleaning of the inside of a (locomotive) boiler to remove scale (limescale). 

  • A breach in a road or railway caused by flooding. 

  • A period between clinical treatments in which any medication delivered as the first treatment is allowed to wash out of the person before the second treatment begins. 

  • A disappointment or total failure; an unsuccessful person. 

  • The aerodynamic effect of a small twist in the shape of an aircraft wing. 

  • A channel produced by the erosion of a relatively soft surface by a sudden gush of water. 

  • The action whereby falling rainwater clean particles from the air. 

  • A sporting fixture or other event that could not be completed because of rain. 

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