persecution vs tormenting

persecution

noun
  • The act of persecuting. 

  • A program or campaign to subjugate or eliminate a specific group of people, often based on race, religion, sexuality, or social beliefs. 

tormenting

noun
  • The act by which somebody is tormented. 

adj
  • Involving or causing torment. 

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