What is the difference between 美人 and 佳人?


Both words mean "beautiful woman", but I guess the reason two words exist is
because of some nuance. Am I right ?




I see no semantic difference, but 佳人 is an uncommon outdated word. On BCCWJ,
there are over 2000 instances of 美人 and only 28 instances of 佳人, most of which
are part of certain old book titles (incl.
[佳人之奇遇](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BD%B3%E4%BA%BA%E4%B9%8B%E5%A5%87%E9%81%87))
or idioms (incl.
[佳人薄命](https://jisho.org/word/%E4%BD%B3%E4%BA%BA%E8%96%84%E5%91%BD)). If you
said 佳人 in casual speech, the listener probably wouldn't even understand it.
On the other hand, on [青空文庫検索](https://www.joao-roiz.jp/AOZORA/), there are
many instances of 佳人 from novelists of the 19th century. So unless you want to
write something stiff mimicking the writing style of old novelists, you should
not use 佳人. (BTW there is also 麗人, which is equally rare)




I see no semantic difference, but 佳人 is an uncommon outdated word. On BCCWJ,
there are over 2000 instances of 美人 and only 28 instances of 佳人, most of which
are part of certain old book titles (incl.
[佳人之奇遇](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BD%B3%E4%BA%BA%E4%B9%8B%E5%A5%87%E9%81%87))
or idioms (incl.
[佳人薄命](https://jisho.org/word/%E4%BD%B3%E4%BA%BA%E8%96%84%E5%91%BD)). If you
said 佳人 in casual speech, the listener probably wouldn't even understand it.
On the other hand, on [青空文庫検索](https://www.joao-roiz.jp/AOZORA/), there are
many instances of 佳人 from novelists of the 19th century. So unless you want to
write something stiff mimicking the writing style of old novelists, you should
not use 佳人. (BTW there is also 麗人, which is equally rare)

