cringe vs rough-and-tumble

cringe

noun
  • A gesture or posture of cringing (recoiling or shrinking). 

  • An act or disposition of servile obeisance. 

  • A crick (“painful muscular cramp or spasm of some part of the body”). 

  • Awkwardness or embarrassment which causes an onlooker to cringe; cringeworthiness. 

adj
  • Inducing awkwardness, embarrassment, or secondhand embarrassment; cringemaking, cringeworthy, cringy. 

verb
  • To experience an inward feeling of disgust, embarrassment, or fear; (by extension) to feel very embarrassed. 

  • To cower, flinch, recoil, shrink, or tense, as in disgust, embarrassment, or fear. 

  • To bow or crouch in servility. 

  • To act in an obsequious or servile manner. 

rough-and-tumble

noun
  • A person who characteristically engages in such activity 

  • An environment of rough activity 

  • Rough activity; fighting or brawling; a fight. 

verb
  • Engage in rough-and-tumble activity 

adj
  • active, vigorous and rough, with the possibility of harm 

  • highly competitive 

How often have the words cringe and rough-and-tumble occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )