maul vs tear at

maul

verb
  • To savage; to cause serious physical wounds (usually used of an animal). 

  • To beat with a maul. 

  • To criticise harshly. 

  • To handle someone or something in a rough way. 

noun
  • A heavy long-handled hammer, used for splitting logs by driving a wedge into them, or in combat. 

  • A situation where the player carrying the ball, who must be on his feet, is held by one or more opponents, and one or more of the ball carrier's team mates bind onto the ball carrier. 

tear at

verb
  • To afflict or aggrieve. 

  • To pull at violently. 

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