difference between 血 and 血液？


Both mean blood according to my dictionary but what is the difference? If
[血]{ち} by itself means blood, then why use [血液]{けつえき}？ What is the difference
in their usage?




The actual meaning of 血 and 血液 is basically the same.

Having two or more different lexical items for the same concept is an
extremely common phenomenon in modern Japanese. This is because when kanji
were originally borrowed from Chinese, the Japanese scholars decided to keep
many Chinese words, even though a word for that concept already existed in
Japanese. Remember, Chinese was a very prestigious language at the time. So
although Japanese already had the word 'chi' for blood, they decided to also
keep the Chinese word 'ketsueki' (or a phonetic approximation of the Chinese
word).

Even in modern Japanese, words like 血液 which were borrowed from Chinese have a
slightly more formal tone than their native Japanese counterparts. You might
notice that in a newspaper or a TV broadcast, the word 血液 may be more likely
to be used than 血. That is a generalization, of course, so please don't regard
it as a rule. One manifestation of this (as another poster pointed out) is
that 血液 tends to be used in more formal language such as scientific
terminology. But in terms of their semantic content, the words are referring
to the same thing.




The actual meaning of 血 and 血液 is basically the same.

Having two or more different lexical items for the same concept is an
extremely common phenomenon in modern Japanese. This is because when kanji
were originally borrowed from Chinese, the Japanese scholars decided to keep
many Chinese words, even though a word for that concept already existed in
Japanese. Remember, Chinese was a very prestigious language at the time. So
although Japanese already had the word 'chi' for blood, they decided to also
keep the Chinese word 'ketsueki' (or a phonetic approximation of the Chinese
word).

Even in modern Japanese, words like 血液 which were borrowed from Chinese have a
slightly more formal tone than their native Japanese counterparts. You might
notice that in a newspaper or a TV broadcast, the word 血液 may be more likely
to be used than 血. That is a generalization, of course, so please don't regard
it as a rule. One manifestation of this (as another poster pointed out) is
that 血液 tends to be used in more formal language such as scientific
terminology. But in terms of their semantic content, the words are referring
to the same thing.

