discourse vs surmise

discourse

verb
  • To exercise reason; to employ the mind in judging and inferring; to reason. 

  • To engage in discussion or conversation; to converse. 

  • To write or speak formally and at length. 

noun
  • Expression in words, either speech or writing. 

  • A formal lengthy exposition of some subject, either spoken or written. 

  • An institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic (after Michel Foucault). 

  • Any rational expression, reason. 

surmise

verb
  • To imagine or suspect; to conjecture; to posit with contestable premises. 

noun
  • Thought, imagination, or conjecture, which may be based upon feeble or scanty evidence; suspicion; guess. 

  • Reflection; thought; posit. 

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