What is the difference between 風潮 and 潮流?


Both words seem to have a meaning of "current" and "tendency/trend". How are
these different? Also, using the tendency meaning, do they differ from 傾向?




  * 風潮 is "how people tend to think/feel about something these days". It can often be undesirable to the speaker, and it often has a negative or sarcastic nuance as compared to トレンド. 

>     * 世間の、縞模様のシャツは格好悪いという風潮
>     * 仕事よりもプライベートを優先する社会の風潮
>     * 世間の風潮に流されずに生きたい。

  * 潮流 ("tide") is a fairly grandiose word as compared to 風潮, and it refers to a global and gradual movement, often toward a new paradigm, a new age, a new political system, etc. 

>     * 時代の潮流
>     * 世界経済の潮流
>     * 共産主義への潮流

  * 傾向 is just "tendency", and it's typically unrelated to people's thoughts or ideology. 

>     * 今年の気温の傾向
>     * 男性は女性より背が高い傾向がある。

潮流 also has a physical meaning ("tide"). 風潮 is almost never used in a physical
sense today.

