assistant vs runner-up

assistant

noun
  • A person who assists or helps someone else. 

  • A software tool that provides assistance in some task, a wizard program. 

  • Sales assistant. 

adj
  • Helping; lending aid or support; auxiliary. 

  • Having a subordinate or auxiliary position. 

runner-up

noun
  • The person who finishes second, or in any position after the first. 

  • Second favourite. 

How often have the words assistant and runner-up occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )