荒れる

あれる · areru · JLPT N2 · verb-ichidan

to be stormy

🌊⛈️ Arrr-eru: the pirate's growl when the sea turns rough

荒 means wild or wasteland, as in 荒野 (wilderness). Add the verb ending -れる and you get 'to become wild': seas get stormy, weather turns rough, and land or skin goes to ruin. Arrr is the pirate's growl at a rough sea.

荒 — grass radical 艹 + 巟 (phonetic, 'vast/wild')
A semantic-phonetic compound: the grass radical 艹 on top gives the meaning of overgrown vegetation, while 巟 below supplies the sound and a sense of vast wildness. Originally it described land covered in wild weeds, then extended to 'wasteland,' 'desolate,' and figuratively 'absurd' or 'famine.'

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