smudge vs stain

smudge

noun
  • A blemish or smear, especially a dark or sooty one. 

  • Dense smoke, such as that used for fumigation. 

  • A quantity of herbs used in suffumigation. 

  • A heap of damp combustibles partially ignited and burning slowly, placed on the windward side of a house, tent, etc. to keep off mosquitoes or other insects. 

verb
  • To subject to ritual burning of herbs (suffumigation, smudging). 

  • To stifle or smother with smoke. 

  • To soil or smear with dirt. 

  • To obscure by blurring; to smear. 

  • To use dense smoke to protect from insects. 

  • To burn herbs as a cleansing ritual (suffumigation). 

stain

noun
  • A blemish on one's character or reputation. 

  • A reagent or dye used to stain microscope specimens so as to make some structures visible. 

  • A discoloured spot or area. 

  • Any of a number of non-standard tinctures used in modern heraldry. 

  • A substance used to soak into a surface and colour it. 

verb
  • To cause to seem inferior or soiled by comparison. 

  • To coat a surface with a stain 

  • To treat (a microscopic specimen) with a dye, especially one that dyes specific features 

  • To taint or tarnish someone's character or reputation 

  • To discolour. 

  • To become stained; to take a stain. 

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