denizen vs townsman

denizen

noun
  • An inhabitant of a place; one who dwells in. 

  • A foreign word that has become naturalised in another language. 

  • A person with rights between those of naturalized citizen and resident alien (roughly permanent resident), obtained through letters patent. 

  • Though born in Iceland, he became a denizen of Britain after leaving Oxford. 

  • One who frequents a place. 

  • An animal or plant from a particular range or habitat. 

verb
  • To grant rights of citizenship to; to naturalize. 

  • To provide with denizens; to populate with adopted or naturalized occupants. 

townsman

noun
  • A man who is a resident of a town, especially of one's own town. 

  • A resident of a university town, as opposed to a scholar at the university; a townie. 

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