cast off vs set adrift

cast off

verb
  • To let go (a cable or rope securing a vessel to a buoy, wharf, etc.) so that the vessel may make way. 

  • To discard or reject something. 

  • To finish the last row of knitted stitches and remove them securely from the needle. 

  • To estimate the amount of space required by the type used for the given copy. 

set adrift

verb
  • To send a ship, boat or raft out to sea without a crew or resources to steer it. 

How often have the words cast off and set adrift occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )