palette knife vs trowel

palette knife

noun
  • In painting, a small, edge-less, more or less flexible steel blade used to mix paint on a palette and sometimes to apply paint to a surface. 

trowel

noun
  • A mason’s tool, used in spreading and dressing mortar, and breaking bricks to shape them. 

  • A gardener’s tool, shaped like a scoop, used in taking up plants, stirring soil etc. 

  • A tool used for smoothing a mold. 

verb
  • To apply (a substance) with a trowel. 

  • To pass over with a trowel. 

  • To apply something heavily or unsubtly. 

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