nail-biting vs white-knuckle

nail-biting

adj
  • That causes nervous anticipation or suspense 

white-knuckle

adj
  • Causing fear, excitement, apprehension, suspense, or nervousness. 

verb
  • To grip tightly in fear, apprehension, suspense, or nervousness. 

  • To endure despite feeling terror, fear, apprehension, anxiety, discomfort, or torment. 

How often have the words nail-biting and white-knuckle occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )