晴れ
はれ
hare
= clear weather / sunny / fine weather / to clear up
晴れ (hare) means clear, sunny weather — and in Japan, where weather conversation is both a social necessity and genuine daily concern (the rainy season, typhoons, and humidity make the sky everyone’s business), this word is used constantly. But 晴れ also has a deeper cultural life: it is one half of a profound Japanese conceptual pair that shapes how the Japanese think about everyday life vs ceremony.
Hare as a noun means clear weather, sunshine, or a fine day. The verb form is 晴れる (hareru — to clear up, to become clear). Common phrases: 晴れの日 (hare no hi — a sunny day), 晴れ間 (harema — a break in the clouds / a spell of sunshine), 晴れ上がる (hare-agaru — to completely clear up), 晴れやか (hareyaka — bright and cheerful / radiant). Weather reports use 晴れ (clear), 曇り (kumori — cloudy), 雨 (ame — rain), and 雪 (yuki — snow) as the four main categories.
晴れ is the noun/adjective form; 晴れる (hareru) is the verb. The pair 晴れ・雨 (hare・ame) appears in many expressions: 晴れ男/晴れ女 (hare-otoko / hare-onna — a person who brings good weather / a lucky-weather person), 雨男/雨女 (ame-otoko / ame-onna — a person who brings rain wherever they go). These are used humorously: 私は雨女だから旅行のたびに雨が降る (watashi wa ame-onna da kara ryokou no tabi ni ame ga furu — I’m a rain woman, so it always rains when I travel).
晴 (sei/hare) depicts the sun (日) on the left and blue/green (青) on the right — a clear blue-sky day with the sun shining. The character perfectly captures the feeling of the sky clearing and turning brilliant blue after rain.
Everyday use
明日は晴れるといいな。洗濯物が溜まっている。
Ashita wa hareru to ii na. Sentakumono ga tamatte iru.
I hope it clears up tomorrow. Laundry is piling up.
Casual / Social Media
やっと晴れた！今日は外でランチする！気持ちいい〜
Yatto hareta! Kyou wa soto de ranchi suru! Kimochi ii~
Finally clear skies! Having lunch outside today! Feels so good~
Formal / Cultural context
気象庁の天気予報において、「晴れ」は雲量が2割以下（快晴）または2〜8割以下（晴れ）の状態を指し、雨や雪の降水がない日天候区分として定義されている。
Kishou-chou no tenki yohou ni oite, ‘hare’ wa unkyo ga ni-wari ika (kaisei) mata wa ni-hachi-wari ika (hare) no joutai wo sashi, ame ya yuki no kousui ga nai hi tenkou kubun toshite teigi sarete iru.
In the Japan Meteorological Agency’s weather forecasts, ‘hare’ (clear) refers to conditions with cloud cover of 20% or less (clear skies) or 20–80% (partly cloudy), and is defined as a daily weather classification without rain or snow precipitation.
晴れ (hare) is one half of a deeply important Japanese cultural distinction: 晴れ (hare — special occasions, formal ceremonies, public life) vs 褻 (ke — everyday, ordinary, private life). This anthropological pair, identified by folklorist Kunio Yanagida, describes the Japanese sense that life alternates between the sacred/formal (hare) and the ordinary/mundane (ke). 晴れの舞台 (hare no butai — the grand stage / a big moment) uses hare in the formal sense: the day of a wedding, graduation, or major performance is a hare day — elevated above ordinary ke days.
The weather-sense and cultural-sense of 晴れ reinforce each other: a clear, sunny day is literally and metaphorically 晴れやか (hareyaka — bright and cheerful), and the best hare occasions traditionally call for clear weather. 晴れ着 (haregi — formal dress / Sunday best) is the clothing one wears for hare occasions — kimonos for traditional celebrations, school uniforms for ceremonies. This layering of meaning — weather, ceremony, emotional brightness — makes 晴れ a word with unusual cultural depth for such a simple concept.
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