put the frighteners on vs threaten

put the frighteners on

threaten

verb
  • To portend, or give a warning of. 

  • To call into question the validity of (a belief, idea, or viewpoint); to challenge. 

  • He threatened me with a knife. 

  • To make a threat against someone; to use threats. 

  • To menace, or be dangerous. 

  • To be close to equaling or surpassing (a record, etc.) 

How often have the words put the frighteners on and threaten occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )