broke vs poor as a church mouse

broke

adj
  • Without any money, penniless. 

  • Demoted, deprived of a commission. 

  • Broke off, rich, wealthy 

  • Financially ruined, bankrupt. 

verb
  • To act as a broker; to transact business for another; synonym of broker. 

  • simple past tense of break 

noun
  • Paper or board that is discarded and repulped during the manufacturing process. 

poor as a church mouse

adj
  • Very poor, to the point of starving or begging; utterly destitute. 

How often have the words broke and poor as a church mouse occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )