hardship vs affliction

hardship and affliction both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
hardship	Yes	No	No	No
affliction	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, affliction is a hyponym of hardship; that is, affliction is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than hardship:

Other hyponyms of hardship include ill-being, catastrophe, disaster, extremity, distress, victimization, low-water mark, nadir.

hardship (noun)	affliction (noun)
something hard to endure	a cause of great suffering and distress
something that causes or entails suffering	a condition of suffering or distress due to ill health
a state of misfortune or affliction	a state of great suffering and distress due to adversity