体面{たいめん} = honor; dignity; prestige; reputation; appearances
面目{めんぼく} = face; countenance; honor; reputation; prestige; dignity
As individual words they seem to be almost the same, is there any difference I need to be aware of? I'm especially curious how the phrases they are used in distinguish their meanings.
For example, the construct ~を保つ
exists for both 体面 and 面目 but do the phrases
体面を保つ
and 面目を保つ
have meanings that are as similar as the words by themselves or do differences in meaning and usage become apparent?
The reason I think differences may appear is because of the difference in the verbs used with each of these words.
(All of the following are 体面を・面目を+VERB from the NINJAL corpus; excluded some at my own discretion for brevity; attempted to group them by concept 仲間外れがあれば、自由に修正してください。)
Same for both 体面 and 面目
保つ
守る
重んじる
損なう
失うUnique to 体面
気にする・思いやる
汚す・捨てる
維持する・繕う
表す
与えるUnique to 面目
施す
一新する・改める・回復する・取り返す
高める・立てる
潰す・失わす・欠く
示す・見せる
発揮する・主張する・貫く
うかがう
So what I noticed is that while both 体面 and 面目 are important, to be protected, and can be lost, only 面目 has positive words like 一新する・改める・回復する・取り返す・高める・立てる associated with it, while with 体面 the best you can do is 維持する・繕う。
With 体面, you 気にする・思いやる it, but with 面目, you 示す・見せる・発揮する・主張する・貫く it.
I'm not sure how clear this is, but there seems to be an intrinsic, significant difference between these words that a dictionary can't express. That's what I'm trying to get to the bottom of.