lose count of vs. lose account of

As far as I'm aware, there is no expression "lose account of". It seems to be a mistake for "lose count of".

There were so many volunteers that we lost count of them. (We didn't know how many there were.)

Lost account of is much less used. (It seems to be used with non-count things like time.)
I'm sorry I didn't call earlier. I got busy and lost account of the time.
He was so drunk that he lost account of how much beer he had consumed.

AlpheccaStarsI'm sorry I didn't call earlier. I got busy and lost account of the time. He was so drunk that he lost account of how much beer he had consumed.

Hmm, maybe I'm wrong then. It's definitely an expression that you know?

GPY AlpheccaStarsI'm sorry I didn't call earlier. I got busy and lost account of the time. He was so drunk that he lost account of how much beer he had consumed.Hmm, maybe I'm wrong then. It's definitely an expression that you know?

It may be OK in AmE. I, a speaker of BrE,would have taken both AS's examples as mistakes. Only 'count' sounds natural to me.

GPYHmm, maybe I'm wrong then. It's definitely an expression that you know?

Yes. But it took me quite some time to think about examples. I found several citations, most related to losing track of time, in Google books. "Lose track of" is much more common, and has the same meaning. I would not say "I lost count of the time."

AlpheccaStarsI would not say "I lost count of the time."

I'm not sure that I would, but I know I would not say "I lost account of the time".

According to Google ngrams, "lost account of the time" is too rare to register, while "lost count of the time" shows a bit of activity. "lost count of time" is shown as many times more common than "lost account of time". Personally I would say "lost track of time".