merchant vs publican

merchant

noun
  • The owner or operator of a retail business. 

  • A trading vessel; a merchantman. 

  • A person who traffics in commodities for profit. 

  • Someone who is noted for a stated type of activity or behaviour. 

verb
  • As a resident of a region, to buy goods from a non-resident and sell them to another non-resident. 

publican

noun
  • The manager or owner of a hotel. 

  • A tax collector, especially one working in Judea and Galilee during New Testament times (1st century C.E.) who was generally regarded as sinful for extorting more tax than was due, and as a traitor for serving the Roman Empire. 

  • The landlord (manager or owner) of a public house (“a bar or tavern, often also selling food and sometimes lodging; a pub”). 

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