shallow vs surface

shallow

noun
  • A costermonger's barrow. 

  • A shallow portion of an otherwise deep body of water. 

  • A fish, the rudd. 

adj
  • Not steep; close to horizontal. 

  • Not far forward, close to the net. 

  • Having little depth; significantly less deep than wide. 

  • Not intellectually deep; not penetrating deeply; simple; not wise or knowing. 

  • Concerned mainly with superficial matters. 

  • Extending not far downward. 

  • Lacking interest or substance. 

verb
  • To make or become less deep. 

surface

noun
  • The outside hull of a tangible object. 

  • Outward or external appearance. 

  • The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid. 

  • The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space. 

verb
  • To apply a surface to something. 

  • To make (information or facts) known. 

  • To become known or apparent; to appear or be found. 

  • To provide something with a surface. 

  • To bring to the surface. 

  • To come out of hiding. 

  • To work a mine near the surface. 

  • To rise to the surface. 

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