stagnant vs unsteady

stagnant

adj
  • Lacking freshness, motion, or flow; decaying through stillness. 

  • Without progress or change; stale; inactive. 

unsteady

adj
  • Inconstant in purpose, or volatile in behavior. 

  • Lacking regularity or uniformity. 

  • Not held firmly in position, physically unstable. 

verb
  • To render unsteady, removing balance. 

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