• 干潮かんちょう — low tide
• 満潮まんちょう — high tide
• 潮流ちょうりゅう — current / trend
• 潮時しおどき — right time / opportunity
• 黒潮くろしお — Kuroshio (Japan Current)
• 親潮おやしお — Oyashio Current

潮 combines the water radical 氵 with 朝 (morning), evoking morning tides and the ocean’s ebb and flow. It covers literal tides and figurative shifts.

By extension, it can signal timing or chance, as in 潮時しおどき — the right moment to act.

潮しおが 満みちてきました。
The tide is coming in.

今いまが 潮時しおどきだと 思おもいます。
I think now is the right time (to act).