pang vs qualm

pang

noun
  • A sudden sharp feeling of an emotional or mental nature, as of joy or sorrow. 

  • A paroxysm of extreme physical pain or anguish; a feeling of sudden and transitory agony; a throe. 

verb
  • To cause to have great pain or suffering; to torment, to torture. 

  • simple past tense of ping 

qualm

noun
  • A sudden sickly feeling; queasiness. 

  • A prick of the conscience; a moral scruple, a pang of guilt. 

  • A feeling of apprehension, doubt, fear etc. 

verb
  • To have a sickly feeling. 

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