effete vs milk-and-water

effete

adj

  • Decadent, weak through self-indulgence. 

  • Affected, overrefined. 

  • Lacking strength or vitality; feeble, powerless, impotent. 

milk-and-water

adj

  • Insipid, wishy-washy, weak. 

noun

  • Something insipid or mawkish. 

How often have the words effete and milk-and-water occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )