operant vs sleeper

operant

noun
  • An operative person or thing. 

  • Any of a class of behaviors that produce consequences by operating (i.e., acting) upon the environment. 

adj
  • That operates to produce an effect. 

sleeper

noun
  • A sedative. 

  • A railroad tie. 

  • A goby-like bottom-feeding freshwater fish of the family Odontobutidae. 

  • A type of pajama for a person, especially a child, that covers the whole body, including the feet. 

  • A sleeper hold. 

  • A heavy floor timber in a ship's bottom. 

  • A nurse shark (family Ginglymostomatidae). 

  • That which lies dormant, as a law. 

  • A bet placed on the gambling table and then forgotten about by the gambler. 

  • An automobile which has been internally modified to excess, while retaining a mostly stock appearance in order to fool opponents in a drag race, or to avoid the attention of the police. 

  • A small starter earring, worn to prevent a piercing from closing. 

  • Someone who sleeps. 

  • Something that achieves unexpected success after an interval of time. 

  • A structural beam in a floor running perpendicular to both the joists beneath and floorboards above. 

  • A spy, saboteur, or terrorist who lives unobtrusively in a community until activated by a prearranged signal; may be part of a sleeper cell. 

  • A railway sleeping car. 

  • The lowest, or bottom, tier of casks. 

verb
  • To mark a calf by cutting its ear. 

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