What is the Shinto concept of ritual impurity called?

What is the Shinto concept of ritual impurity called? Kegare is the Shinto concept of ritual impurity, pollution, or defilement.

Kegare describes a condition that can separate a person, place, or community from harmonious contact with the kami. Traditional sources associate it especially with death, disease, blood, childbirth, menstruation, and other circumstances treated as ritually contaminating. The details and social consequences of kegare have varied across periods and communities.

Kegare is not simply the same as Christian sin or a judgment that someone is morally evil. It is often understood as a temporary state produced by contact with certain forces or events, whether deliberate or involuntary. Because it can be remedied, it is closely connected with purification.

Purification rites include harae, in which a priest symbolically removes pollution, and misogi, which uses water or immersion. Tsumi is a related but distinct term often translated as transgression or taboo violation; Harae and misogi are remedies, not alternative names for the impurity itself.