scattered vs thin on the ground

scattered

adj
  • Seemingly randomly distributed. 

  • Covering three eighths to four eighths of the sky. 

  • Dispersed, spread apart into disunited units. 

  • Affecting 30 percent to 50 percent of a forecast zone. 

thin on the ground

adj
  • scarce, or difficult to find. 

How often have the words scattered and thin on the ground occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )