tear-jerking vs tragic

tear-jerking

tragic

adj
  • Cringeworthy; tryhard; unhip; embarrassing; hopeless; indicative of (or having) a chronic lack of self-awareness. 

  • Having been the victim of a tragedy. 

  • Causing great sadness or suffering. 

  • Relating to tragedy in a literary work. 

noun
  • An obsessive fan, a superfan 

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