lesser vs runner-up

lesser

adj
  • Of two (or, rarely, more than two) things: the smaller in size (littler), in value, in importance etc. 

noun
  • a thing that is of smaller size, value, importance etc. 

runner-up

noun
  • Second favourite. 

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

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