bulwark vs mimic

bulwark

verb
  • To provide protection of defense for something. 

  • To fortify something with a wall or rampart. 

noun
  • A defensive wall or rampart. 

  • A defense or safeguard. 

  • A breakwater. 

  • Any means of defence or security. 

  • The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard. 

mimic

verb
  • To take on the appearance of another, for protection or camouflage. 

  • To imitate, especially in order to ridicule. 

noun
  • An imitation. 

  • A comic who does impressions. 

  • An entity that mimics another entity, such as a disease that resembles another disease in its signs and symptoms; see the great imitator. 

  • A mime. 

adj
  • Imitative; characterized by resemblance to other forms; applied to crystals which by twinning resemble simple forms of a higher grade of symmetry. 

  • Pertaining to mimicry; imitative. 

  • Mock, pretended. 

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