grapple vs struggle

grapple

verb
  • To climb (whether by means of a grapple and rope, or by hand, etc). 

  • To hook and raise with a grapple. 

  • To ponder and intensely evaluate a problem; to struggle to deal with. 

  • To fasten, as with a grapple; (by extension) to fix; to join indissolubly. 

  • To wrestle or tussle. 

  • To seize something and hold it firmly. 

  • To use a grapple (for example to attempt to find, hook, and raise a net or cable). 

noun
  • A grapnel (“type of anchor”). 

  • A close hand-to-hand struggle. 

  • A combination of grape and apple flavors. 

  • The act of grappling. (uncountable) 

  • A device consisting of iron claws, attached to the end of a rope, used for grasping and holding an enemy ship prior to boarding; a grappling iron. 

struggle

verb
  • To strive, or to make efforts, with a twisting, or with contortions of the body. 

  • To strive, to labour in difficulty, to fight (for or against), to contend. 

noun
  • A contortion of the body in an attempt to escape or to perform a difficult task. 

  • Strife, contention, great effort. 

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