malign vs vilify

malign

verb
  • To make defamatory statements about; to slander or traduce. 

adj
  • Evil or malignant in disposition, nature, intent or influence. 

  • Malevolent. 

  • Malignant. 

vilify

verb
  • To say defamatory things about someone or something; to speak ill of. 

  • To belittle through speech; to put down. 

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