decay vs taint

decay

verb
  • To cause to rot or deteriorate. 

  • To undergo bit rot, that is, gradual degradation. 

  • To deteriorate, to get worse, to lose strength or health, to decline in quality. 

  • To undergo optical decay, that is, to relax to a less excited state, usually by emitting a photon or phonon. 

  • Loss of airspeed due to drag. 

  • To undergo software rot, that is, to fail to be updated in a changing environment, so as to eventually become legacy or obsolete. 

  • To change by undergoing fission, by emitting radiation, or by capturing or losing one or more electrons; to undergo radioactive decay. 

  • Of an array: to lose its type and dimensions and be reduced to a pointer, for example when passed to a function. 

  • To rot, to go bad. 

  • To undergo prolonged reduction in altitude (above the orbited body). 

noun
  • The process or result of being gradually decomposed. 

  • A deterioration of condition; loss of status or fortune. 

  • The situation, in programming languages such as C, where an array loses its type and dimensions and is reduced to a pointer, for example by passing it to a function. 

taint

verb
  • To be infected or corrupted; to be touched by something corrupting. 

  • To contaminate or corrupt (something) with an external agent, either physically or morally. 

  • To damage, as a lance, without breaking it; also, to break, as a lance, but usually in an unknightly or unscientific manner. 

  • To thrust ineffectually with a lance. 

  • To invalidate (a share capital account) by transferring profits into it. 

  • To be affected with incipient putrefaction. 

  • To spoil (food) by contamination. 

  • To mark (a variable) as unsafe, so that operations involving it are subject to additional security checks. 

noun
  • A tinge, trace or touch. 

  • A mark of disgrace, especially on one's character; blemish. 

  • A marker indicating that a variable is unsafe and should be subjected to additional security checks. 

  • A contamination, decay or putrefaction, especially in food. 

  • A thrust with a lance, which fails of its intended effect. 

  • An injury done to a lance in an encounter, without its being broken; also, a breaking of a lance in an encounter in a dishonorable or unscientific manner. 

  • The perineum. 

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