straw vs tawny

straw

noun
  • A pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw. 

  • A dried stalk of a cereal plant. 

  • Such dried stalks considered collectively; this bulk matter may be a chief salable product, a by-product, fodder, bedding, or green manure, depending on region and on current market conditions. 

  • Anything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing. 

  • A drinking straw. 

verb
  • To lay straw around plants to protect them from frost. 

adj
  • Made of straw. 

  • Of a pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw. 

  • Imaginary, but presented as real. 

tawny

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

  • 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. 

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