sweat vs touch wood

sweat

verb
  • To suffer a penalty; to smart for one's misdeeds. 

  • To stress out. 

  • To cause to excrete moisture through skin. 

  • To emit sweat. 

  • To worry about (something). 

  • To cause to perspire. 

  • To have drops of water form on (something's surface) due to moisture condensation. 

  • To be extremely dedicated to winning a game; to play competitively. 

  • To extract money, labour, etc. from, by exaction or oppression. 

  • To emit moisture. 

  • To solder (a pipe joint) together. 

  • To take a racehorse for a short exercise run. 

  • To cook slowly at low heat, in shallow oil and without browning, to reduce moisture content. 

  • To worry. 

  • To work hard. 

  • To emit, in the manner of sweat. 

noun
  • The state of one who sweats; diaphoresis. 

  • Hard work; toil. 

  • A short run by a racehorse as a form of exercise. 

  • An extremely competitive player. 

  • The sweating sickness. 

  • Fluid that exits the body through pores in the skin usually due to physical stress and/or high temperature for the purpose of regulating body temperature and removing certain compounds from the circulation. 

  • A soldier (especially one who is old or experienced). 

  • Moisture issuing from any substance. 

touch wood

verb
  • To make contact with wood to avert bad luck, in accordance with a folk practice. 

intj
  • Hopefully; said while touching something wooden, to avert superstitious bad luck from what has just been said. 

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