ChiramiMountain + wind = storm: the kanji 嵐 (arashi)
嵐 (arashi) is the Japanese word for a storm, and its kanji is two simple pieces stacked up: 山, mountain, on top of 風, wind. Wind howling down from the mountains: once you know the parts, you can read it at a glance. Its past is a little more surprising, because in China it usually meant something much gentler: mountain mist.
What the kanji say
山 (yama), mountain, began as a drawing of three peaks, the middle one tallest. In the oldest forms the peaks were little triangles. On top of a kanji it often marks mountain words, like 岩 (iwa), a rock.
風 (kaze) is wind. It’s a common kanji in its own right, in 台風 (taifuu), typhoon, and in words for style, like 和風 (wafuu), Japanese-style. In 嵐 it sits under the mountain, squeezed a little flatter.
Where it really comes from
The video’s sum, mountain plus wind, is a good way to remember 嵐, and one major dictionary reads it exactly that way. The full story has a few twists.
- In Chinese, 嵐 was mostly mountain mist. It was a literary word. A later supplement to the Shuowen Jiezi, the great Chinese dictionary of around 100 CE, lists it only as the name of a mountain. In literary Chinese it came to mean the haze that hangs in the hills. One early dictionary, the Yupian, does gloss it as “a great wind”.
- Scholars disagree about the 風. Shirakawa Shizuka’s kanji dictionary, Jitsuu, reads 嵐 as a compound of meaning: mountain + wind. The Shuowen supplement says the bottom part is there for its sound. It treats it as a short form of 葻, a rarer character with 風 inside, keeping only the 風.
- Japan made it a storm. Japanese writers used 嵐 for their own word あらし (arashi), a violent storm. Jitsuu notes it simply: in Japan, the kanji is used to mean arashi. The misty Chinese sense survives in a few literary words, like 晴嵐 (seiran), mountain haze.
The word arashi itself is native Japanese. The most widely accepted explanation is ara, rough or wild, plus shi, an old word for wind: a “wild wind”. Others link it to おろし (oroshi), a wind that blows down from the mountains. If the usual explanation is right, the wind was in the Japanese word before it ever met the kanji.
How to use it
今晩は嵐になるそうです。
Konban wa arashi ni naru sou desu.
They say there'll be a storm tonight.
昨日の夜はひどい嵐だった。
Kinou no yoru wa hidoi arashi datta.
There was a terrible storm last night.
嵐の前の静けさだね。
Arashi no mae no shizukesa da ne.
It's the calm before the storm.
会場は拍手の嵐に包まれた。
Kaijou wa hakushu no arashi ni tsutsumareta.
The hall erupted in a storm of applause.
- A storm of anything. Like the English word, 嵐 works for crowds and feelings too: 拍手の嵐, a storm of applause, or 批判の嵐 (hihan no arashi), a storm of criticism.
- 砂嵐 (sunaarashi) is a sandstorm, and also the “snow” on an old TV with no signal.
- Don’t confuse it with 荒らし (arashi), from 荒らす (arasu), to lay waste. Online, a 荒らし is a troll.
- 嵐山 (Arashiyama), the famous scenic district on the western edge of Kyoto, is written “storm mountain”.
Words with the same kanji
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 砂嵐 | sunaarashi | sandstorm; TV static |
| 雪嵐 | yukiarashi | snowstorm |
| 磁気嵐 | jikiarashi | magnetic storm |
| 青嵐 | aoarashi | wind through fresh green leaves |
| 晴嵐 | seiran | mountain haze |
| 嵐の前の静けさ | arashi no mae no shizukesa | the calm before the storm |
Remember it
A mountain (山) standing over the wind (風): the wind piles up behind the peaks, then comes roaring down the other side. That’s 嵐, a storm.
The kanji in this lesson
Tap Draw it to watch the stroke order. Numbers show where each stroke starts.