escape vs retreat

escape

noun
  • The act of leaving a dangerous or unpleasant situation. 

  • Leakage or outflow, as of steam or a liquid, or an electric current through defective insulation. 

  • escape key 

  • A holiday, viewed as time away from the vicissitudes of life. 

  • A defective product that is allowed to leave a manufacturing facility. 

  • A successful shot from a snooker position. 

  • The text character represented by 27 (decimal) or 1B (hexadecimal). 

  • Something that has escaped; an escapee. 

  • An apophyge. 

verb
  • To cause (a single character, or all such characters in a string) to be interpreted literally, instead of with any special meaning it would usually have in the same context, often by prefixing with another character. 

  • To elude the observation or notice of; to not be seen or remembered by. 

  • To halt a program or command by pressing a key (such as the "Esc" key) or combination of keys. 

  • To get free; to free oneself. 

  • To avoid (any unpleasant person or thing); to elude, get away from. 

  • To avoid capture; to get away with something, avoid punishment. 

retreat

noun
  • The act of pulling back or withdrawing, as from something dangerous, or unpleasant. 

  • A peaceful, quiet place affording privacy or security. 

  • The act of reversing direction and receding from a forward position. 

  • A bugle call or drumbeat signaling the lowering of the flag at sunset, as on a military base. 

  • A military ceremony to lower the flag. 

  • The move of a piece from a threatened position. 

  • A period of retirement, seclusion, or solitude. 

  • A period of meditation, prayer or study. 

  • A signal for a military withdrawal. 

  • Withdrawal by military force from a dangerous position or from enemy attack. 

verb
  • To slope back. 

  • To withdraw military forces 

  • To shrink back due to generally warmer temperatures. 

  • To withdraw from a position, go back. 

  • a retreating forehead 

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