social climber vs upstart

social climber

noun
  • One who tries to improve his or her social standing, especially by means of obsequious behaviour. 

upstart

noun
  • One who has suddenly gained wealth, power, or other prominence, but either has not received social acceptance or has become arrogant or presumptuous. 

  • The meadow saffron. 

adj
  • Acting like a parvenu. 

  • self-important and presumptuous. 

verb
  • to rise suddenly, to spring 

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