halt vs take a rain check

halt

verb
  • To bring to a stop. 

  • To be lame, faulty, or defective, as in connection with ideas, or in measure, or in versification. 

  • To limp; move with a limping gait. 

  • To stand in doubt whether to proceed, or what to do; hesitate; be uncertain; linger; delay; mammer. 

  • To falter. 

  • To stop marching. 

  • To stop either temporarily or permanently. 

  • To cause to discontinue. 

  • To waver. 

noun
  • A minor railway station (usually unstaffed) in the United Kingdom. 

  • A cessation, either temporary or permanent. 

take a rain check

verb
  • In social interactions, to request a deferral of an invitation. To "take a rain check" is a polite way to turn down an engagement, usually with the implication that one is simply postponing it and another time might be acceptable. 

  • To request or accept a rain check (an agreement from a merchant to honor a special offer, temporarily unavailable, after the expiration date). 

How often have the words halt and take a rain check occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )