Nuances between 災難 and 災い As the title says, I'm not sure of the difference between and . Both seem to be mainly used for "personal" disasters (as opposed to ). There is a GOO Thesaurus page, but it doesn't really help me here. It does indicate is natural but is odd. Is there a reason for this? Another more minor question: while the thesaurus indicates only is used for X constructions for defining a type of disaster, I see many example sentences of the form , , and so on. Is "(escape-like word)" another specific pattern that is exclusive to ? And are the X and escape patterns the only way is used?

To some extent, they mean the same 'bad event', but

* has religious/supernatural tone; it is more abstract and affects 'big' entities.
* is more concrete, personal bad luck.



Being bitten by a dog is too personal to be called . And the influence of an earthquake is too big for to be called .

Other than that, the difference is a matter of usage and collocation. / (affected by something bad) are both fine; In the following (randomly picked in BCCWJ), cannot be used.

* _Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses_ (usage)
* (religious)
* (big)
* (abstract)
* (fixed phrase)



is the opposite to _Blessed are..._ ; Also it is possible to say + to mean _affect negatively_ while is ungrammatical.

* * *

For , I think it is used almost exclusively in combinations with verbs given in the following (or verbs meaning very similar):

> ― ****
> ― **** ()
> ―― ****
> ― ****
>