sprinkle vs sprinkling

sprinkle

noun
  • A light rain shower. 

  • An aspersorium or utensil for sprinkling. 

  • A small hard piece of sugar and starch, or chocolate, used to decorate cakes etc. 

  • A light covering with a sprinkled substance. 

verb
  • To cover (an object) by sprinkling a substance on to it. 

  • To drip in fine drops, sometimes sporadically. 

  • To baptize by the application of a few drops, or a small quantity, of water; hence, to cleanse; to purify. 

  • To rain very lightly outside. 

  • To cause (a substance) to fall in fine drops (for a liquid substance) or small pieces (for a solid substance). 

sprinkling

noun
  • A light shower of rain. 

  • The action of the verb to sprinkle. 

  • A small thinly distributed amount, e.g. of some liquid, powder or other fine substance that is sprinkled on to something. 

  • A scattering. 

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