defender vs white knight

defender

noun
  • Someone who defends people or property. 

  • A defendant in a civil action. 

  • A fighter who seeks to repel an attack. 

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

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

white knight

noun
  • Someone who unnecessarily defends someone else. 

  • An individual or corporation that intends to acquire another company in order to avert a hostile takeover. 

  • A man who defends a woman in debate etc. in an attempt to gain her favour. 

  • A mushroom of species Tricholoma album. 

  • A hero, savior, or righteous individual. 

verb
  • To unnecessarily defend someone, especially in an attempt to gain favour. 

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