favor vs the thing

favor

noun
  • The object of regard; person or thing favoured. 

  • A small gift; a party favor. 

  • Mildness or mitigation of punishment; lenity. 

  • A kind or helpful deed; an instance of voluntarily assisting (someone). 

  • Partiality; bias 

  • Goodwill; benevolent regard. 

verb
  • To resemble; especially, to look like (another person). 

  • To do a favor [noun sense 1] for; to show beneficence toward. 

  • To look upon fondly; to prefer. 

  • To use more often. 

  • To encourage, conduce to 

  • To treat with care. 

the thing

noun
  • The desired thing: someone or something that is popularly favored. 

  • The needful thing: something suitable for the purpose. 

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