American vs North American

American

adj
  • Of, from, or pertaining to the Americas. 

  • Of, from, or pertaining to the United States of America, its people, or its culture. 

  • Able to be exercised on any date between its issue and expiry. 

  • Of, from, or pertaining to British North America. 

noun
  • A citizen or inhabitant of British North America. 

  • The dialect of English spoken in and around the contiguous United States of America. 

  • A citizen or inhabitant of the United States of America. 

  • Any inhabitant of the Americas. 

  • American cheese. 

North American

adj
  • of, or relating to North America 

noun
  • A person from or living in North America. 

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