defender vs rearguard

defender

noun
  • A lawyer who represents defendants, especially a public defender; a defense attorney (US) or defence counsel (UK). 

  • A defendant in a civil action. 

  • A fighter who seeks to repel an attack. 

  • Someone who defends people or property. 

  • One of the players whose primary task is to prevent the opposition from scoring. 

rearguard

noun
  • The defence, collectively the defenders. 

  • The rearmost part of a force, especially a detachment of troops that protect the rear of a retreating force. 

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