follow vs ply

follow

verb
  • To walk in, as a road or course; to attend upon closely, as a profession or calling. 

  • To understand, to pay attention to. 

  • To subscribe to see content from an account on a social media platform. 

  • To live one's life according to (religion, teachings, etc). 

  • To carry out (orders, instructions, etc.). 

  • To be a logical consequence of something. 

  • To watch, to keep track of (reports of) some event or person. 

  • To go or come after in a sequence. 

  • To go after; to pursue; to move behind in the same path or direction, especially with the intent of catching. 

noun
  • In billiards and similar games, a stroke causing a ball to follow another ball after hitting it. 

  • The act of following another user's online activity. 

ply

verb
  • To work at (something) diligently. 

  • To press upon; to urge persistently. 

  • To persist in offering something to, especially for the purpose of inducement or persuasion. 

  • To travel over (a route) regularly. 

  • To bend, to flex; to be bent by something, to give way or yield (to a force, etc.). 

  • To wield or use (a tool, a weapon, etc.) steadily or vigorously. 

noun
  • In two-player sequential games, a "half-turn" or a move made by one of the players. 

  • A layer of material. 

  • A bent; a direction. 

  • A strand that, twisted together with other strands, makes up rope or yarn. 

  • A condition, a state. 

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