amber vs tawny

amber

noun
  • A yellow-orange colour. 

  • A hard, generally yellow to brown translucent fossil resin, used for jewellery. One variety, blue amber, appears blue rather than yellow under direct sunlight. 

  • The stop codon (nucleotide triplet) "UAG", or a mutant which has this stop codon at a premature place in its DNA sequence. 

  • Hesitance to proceed, or limited approval to proceed; an amber light. 

  • The intermediate light in a set of three traffic lights, which when illuminated indicates that drivers should stop short of the intersection when safe to do so. 

adj
  • Of a brownish yellow colour, like that of most amber. 

verb
  • To take on the yellow colour of amber. 

  • To cause to take on the yellow colour of amber. 

  • To perfume or flavour with ambergris. 

  • To preserve in amber. 

tawny

noun
  • A light brown to brownish orange colour. 

  • Synonym of tenné (“a rarely-used tincture of orange or bright brown”) 

  • In full tawny port: a sweet, fortified port wine which is blended and matured in wooden casks. 

  • Tawny owl. 

  • Tawny frogmouth. 

  • The common bullfinch or Eurasian bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula). 

  • Something of a light brown or brownish orange colour (particularly if it has the word tawny in its name). 

adj
  • Of a light brown to brownish orange colour. 

verb
  • To become a light brown to brownish orange colour; to tan, to tawn. 

  • To cause (someone or something) to have a light brown to brownish orange colour; to tan, to tawn. 

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