nerve vs pluck

nerve

noun
  • Patience; stamina; endurance, fortitude. 

  • A neuron. 

  • The elastic resistance of raw rubber or other polymers to permanent deformation during processing. 

  • mental agitation caused by fear, stress or other negative emotions. 

  • A vein in a leaf; a grain in wood. 

  • A bundle of neurons with their connective tissue sheaths, blood vessels and lymphatics. 

  • Courage; boldness; audacity; gall. 

  • One's neural structures considered collectively as, and conceptually equated with, one's psyche; 

verb
  • May their example nerve us to face the enemy. 

  • To give strength; to supply energy or vigour. 

  • To give courage. 

pluck

noun
  • Guts, nerve, fortitude or persistence. 

  • The lungs, heart with trachea and often oesophagus removed from slaughtered animals. 

  • An instance of plucking or pulling sharply. 

  • Cheap wine. 

verb
  • To take or remove (someone) quickly from a particular place or situation. 

  • To pull something sharply; to pull something out 

  • To pull or twitch sharply. 

  • To remove feathers from a bird. 

  • To play a string instrument pizzicato. 

  • To gently play a single string, e.g. on a guitar, violin etc. 

  • Of a glacier: to transport individual pieces of bedrock by means of gradual erosion through freezing and thawing. 

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