particle vs speck

particle

noun
  • A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something. 

  • A part of speech which cannot be inflected. 

  • A little bit. 

  • Any of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom; an elementary particle or subatomic particle. 

  • A part of speech that has no inherent lexical definition but must be associated with another word to impart meaning, often a grammatical category: for example, the English word to in a full infinitive phrase (to eat) or O in a vocative phrase (O Canada), or as a discourse marker (mmm). 

  • In the Roman Catholic church, a crumb of consecrated bread; also the smaller breads used in the communion of the laity. 

speck

noun
  • A very small thing; a particle; a whit. 

  • A juniper-flavoured ham originally from Tyrol. 

  • The fat of the hippopotamus. 

  • A tiny spot, especially of dirt etc. 

  • Fat; lard; fat meat. 

  • The blubber of whales or other marine mammals. 

  • A small etheostomoid fish, Etheostoma stigmaeum, common in the eastern United States. 

verb
  • To mark with specks; to speckle. 

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