malign vs run something down

malign

adj
  • Evil or malignant in disposition, nature, intent or influence. 

  • Malevolent. 

  • Malignant. 

verb
  • To make defamatory statements about; to slander or traduce. 

run something down

How often have the words malign and run something down occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )