sham vs winding sheet

sham

noun
  • A decorative cover for a pillow. 

  • A false front, or removable ornamental covering. 

  • Trickery, hoaxing. 

  • A fake; an imitation that purports to be genuine. 

  • Champagne. 

verb
  • To obtrude by fraud or imposition. 

  • To deceive, cheat, lie. 

  • To assume the manner and character of; to imitate; to ape; to feign. 

adj
  • mock 

  • Intended to deceive; false. 

  • counterfeit; unreal 

  • See also Thesaurus:fake 

winding sheet

noun
  • A burial shroud. 

  • A collection of tallow rising up against the wick of a candle, once regarded as an omen of death. 

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