refuse vs reject

refuse

verb
  • To decline (a request or demand). 

  • To decline a request or demand, forbear; to withhold permission. 

  • To melt again. 

  • To throw back, or cause to keep back (as the centre, a wing, or a flank), out of the regular alignment when troops are about to engage the enemy. 

adj
  • Discarded, rejected. 

noun
  • Collectively, items or material that have been discarded; rubbish, garbage. 

reject

verb
  • To refuse to accept. 

  • To refuse a romantic advance. 

  • To block a shot, especially if it sends the ball off the court. 

noun
  • A rejected takeoff. 

  • A rejected defective product in a production line. 

  • Something that is rejected. 

  • An unpopular person. 

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