凄

See also: 淒 and 悽

凄 U+51C4, 凄 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-51C4 ← 凃 [U+51C3] CJK Unified Ideographs 凅 → [U+51C5]

Translingual

Han character

凄 (Kangxi radical 15, 冫+8, 10 strokes, cangjie input 戈一十中女 (IMJLV), four-corner 3514₄, composition ⿰冫妻)

1. bitter cold, miserable, dreary

References

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 132, character 33
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 1657
• Dae Jaweon: page 296, character 22
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 1, page 299, character 1
• Unihan data for U+51C4

Chinese

Glyph origin

Characters in the same phonetic series (妻) (Zhengzhang, 2003) 

	Old Chinese
妻	*sʰiːl, *sʰiːls
萋	*sʰiːl
淒	*sʰiːl
凄	*sʰiːl
悽	*sʰiːl
鶈	*sʰiːl
郪	*sʰiːl, *sʰil
緀	*sʰiːl, *sʰiːlʔ
霋	*sʰiːl
棲	*siːl

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 / 形声, OC *sʰiːl) : semantic 冫 (“ice”) + phonetic 妻 (OC *sʰiːl, *sʰiːls)

Etymology 1

For pronunciation and definitions of 凄 – see 淒 (“chilly; cold; frigid; miserable; sorrowful; sad; etc.”). (This character is the simplified and variant form of 淒).

Notes: Simplified Chinese is mainly used in Mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore. Traditional Chinese is mainly used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

Etymology 2

For pronunciation and definitions of 凄 – see 悽 (“miserable; sorrowful; sad”). (This character is the simplified form of 悽).

Notes: Simplified Chinese is mainly used in Mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore. Traditional Chinese is mainly used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

Japanese

Kanji

凄

(Jōyō kanji)

1. uncanny
2. awful, whacking, enormous, bloody, terrible

Readings

• Go-on: さい (sai)
• Kan-on: せい (sei, Jōyō)
• Kun: さむい (samui, 凄い)、すさまじい (susamajii, 凄まじい)、すごい (sugoi, 凄い)、すごみ (sugomi, 凄み)、すごむ (sugomu, 凄む)

Derived terms

• 凄惨
• 凄切
• 凄絶
• 凄然
• 凄愴
• 凄涼

Korean

Hanja

凄 (eum 처 (cheo))

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Vietnamese

Han character

凄: Hán Nôm readings: thê

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.