tercet vs tierce

tercet

noun
  • a three-line stanza in a poem 

tierce

noun
  • Synonym of terce: the third canonical hour or its service. 

  • A measure of capacity equal to a third of a pipe, or a cask or other vessel holding such a quantity; a cask larger than a barrel, and smaller than a hogshead or a puncheon, in which wine or salt provisions, rice, etc., are packed for shipment. 

  • An ordinary that covers the left or right third of the field of a shield or flag. 

  • The third tone of the scale. See mediant. 

  • A sequence of three playing cards of the same suit. Tierce of ace, king and queen is called tierce-major. 

  • The third defensive position, with the sword hand held at waist height, and the tip of the sword at head height. 

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