persist vs transmute

persist

verb
  • To repeat an utterance. 

  • To go on stubbornly or resolutely. 

  • To cause to persist; make permanent. 

  • To continue to exist. 

transmute

verb
  • To change, transform or convert one thing to another, or from one state or form to another. 

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