a great many vs a little

a great many

det

  • A substantial number of 

a little

det

  • A small amount of. 

adv

  • A lot. 

  • Slightly. 

  • Very. 

  • A lot of. 

  • To a small extent or degree. 

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