firm vs putty in hands

firm

noun
  • A criminal gang, especially based around football hooliganism. 

  • A business partnership; the name under which it trades. 

  • A business enterprise, however organized. 

adj
  • Durable, rigid (material state) 

  • Fixed (in opinion). 

  • Insistent upon something, not accepting dissent. 

  • Steadfast, secure, solid (in position) 

verb
  • To become firm; stabilise. 

  • To make firm or strong; fix securely. 

  • To improve after decline. 

  • To make compact or resistant to pressure; solidify. 

  • To shorten (of betting odds). 

  • To select (a higher education institution) as one's preferred choice, so as to enrol automatically if one's grades match the conditional offer. 

putty in hands

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