captain vs ranger

captain

verb
  • To act as captain 

  • To exercise command of a ship, aircraft or sports team. 

noun
  • An honorific title given to a prominent person. See colonel. 

  • The head boy of a school. 

  • A maître d', a headwaiter. 

  • A chief or leader. 

  • An army officer with a rank between the most senior grade of lieutenant and major. 

  • A naval officer with a rank between commander and commodore. 

  • The person lawfully in command of a ship or other vessel. 

  • One of the athletes on a sports team who is designated to make decisions, and is allowed to speak for his team with a referee or official. 

  • A commissioned officer in the United States Navy, Coast Guard, NOAA Corps, or PHS Corps of a grade superior to a commander and junior to a rear admiral (lower half). A captain is equal in grade or rank to a United States Army, Marine Corps, or Air Force colonel. 

  • The leader of a group of workers. 

ranger

verb
  • To work as a ranger. 

noun
  • A roving robber; one who seeks plunder. 

  • In some modern armies, an elite soldier, similar to special forces but often operating in larger units. 

  • One who ranges; a rover. 

  • A character skilled in the use of ranged weapons. 

  • A keeper, guardian, or soldier who ranges over a region (generally of wilderness) to protect the area or enforce the law. 

  • A dog that beats the ground in search of game. 

  • A warrior character, often with wilderness and stealth skill, who typically travels the countryside. 

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