accountant vs bean counter

accountant

noun
  • A reckoner, or someone who maintains financial matters for a person(s). 

  • A sex worker, particularly one who does not want to be publicized as one 

  • One who renders account; one accountable. 

  • One whose profession includes organizing, maintaining and auditing the records of another. The records are usually, but not always, financial records. 

  • One who is skilled in, keeps, or adjusts, accounts; an officer in a public office, who has charge of the accounts. 

bean counter

noun
  • A person who is excessively interested in controlling or reducing expenses, increasing profits, or in quantitative details in general. The term is often used to imply the person is a pedant and incapable of seeing other things or the bigger picture (more general things), but it is also widely used as a mildly derogatory term and even facetious synonym for accountants, CEOs, CFOs, business and government officials responsible for financial decisions, etc. 

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