less vs not so much

less

conj
  • unless 

adv
  • To a smaller extent or degree. 

  • Used for constructing syntactic diminutive comparatives of adjectives and adverbs. 

prep
  • Minus; not including 

noun
  • A smaller amount or quantity. 

det
  • Fewer; a smaller number of. 

  • A smaller amount of; not as much. 

not so much

phrase
  • Indicates that the speaker identifies with a prior statement to a much lesser degree (or not at all) than the other person. 

  • Indicates that one factor is much more relevant or important than another. 

How often have the words less and not so much occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )