scare the pants off vs startle

scare the pants off

verb

  • To scare or startle someone thoroughly. 

startle

verb

  • To move suddenly, or be excited, on feeling alarm; to start. 

  • To excite by sudden alarm, surprise, or apprehension; to frighten suddenly and not seriously; to alarm; to surprise. 

noun

  • A sudden motion or shock caused by an unexpected alarm, surprise, or apprehension of danger. 

How often have the words scare the pants off and startle occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )