undertone vs vowel

undertone

noun
  • An auditory tone of low pitch or volume. 

  • A pale colour, or one seen underneath another colour. 

  • A low state of the physical faculties. 

  • An implicit message perceived subtly alongside, but not detracting noticeably from, the explicit message conveyed in or by a book, film, verbal dialogue or similar (contrast with overtone); an undercurrent. 

verb
  • To accompany as an undertone. 

  • To say or speak in an undertone. 

  • To present as less important, noticeable or prominent. 

vowel

noun
  • A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable. 

  • A letter representing the sound of vowel; in English, the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and y. 

verb
  • To add vowel points to a consonantal script (e.g. niqqud in Hebrew or harakat in Arabic). 

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