deteriorate vs taper off

deteriorate

verb
  • To grow worse; to be impaired in quality; to degenerate. 

  • To make worse; to make inferior in quality or value; to impair. 

taper off

verb
  • To diminish or lessen gradually; to become smaller, slower, quieter, etc. 

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