blond vs tawny

blond

noun
  • A pale yellowish (golden brown) color, especially said of hair color. 

  • A person with this hair color. 

verb
  • To color or dye blond. 

adj
  • Of a bleached or pale golden (light yellowish) colour. 

  • Having blond hair. 

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 blond and tawny occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )