blacken vs scorch

blacken

verb
  • To defame or sully. 

  • To make dirty. 

  • To cook (meat or fish) by coating with pepper, etc., and quickly searing in a hot pan. 

  • To become black. 

  • To cause to be or become black. 

scorch

verb
  • (To cause) to become scorched or singed 

  • To wither, parch or destroy something by heat or fire, especially to make land or buildings unusable to an enemy 

  • To move at high speed (so as to leave scorch marks on the ground, physically or figuratively). 

  • To burn; to destroy by, or as by, fire. 

  • To attack with bitter sarcasm or virulence. 

  • To burn the surface of something so as to discolour it 

noun
  • A slight or surface burn. 

  • Brown discoloration on the leaves of plants caused by heat, lack of water or by fungi. 

  • A discolouration caused by heat. 

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