pale vs tawny

pale

verb
  • To turn pale; to lose colour. 

  • To make pale; to diminish the brightness of. 

  • To enclose with pales, or as if with pales; to encircle or encompass; to fence off. 

  • To become insignificant. 

adj
  • Feeble, faint. 

  • Light in color. 

  • Having a pallor (a light color, especially due to sickness, shock, fright etc.). 

noun
  • Limits, bounds (especially before of). 

  • A vertical band down the middle of a shield. 

  • A cheese scoop. 

  • The bounds of morality, good behaviour or judgment in civilized company, in the phrase beyond the pale. 

  • A wooden stake; a picket. 

tawny

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

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

adj
  • Of a light brown to brownish orange colour. 

noun
  • 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). 

  • A light brown to brownish orange colour. 

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

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