About
The character 凇 is a phono-semantic compound created to denote rime, the meteorological phenomenon of white ice crystals that coat tree branches and other exposed objects during freezing fog or damp, cold weather. Its structure combines the two-stroke ice radical 冫 on the left, which provides the semantic category of freezing temperatures and frozen precipitation, with the character 松 (sōng) on the right. 松 acts as the phonetic indicator, but it also means 'pine tree', and these trees are often the ones covered in rime. The result is a highly specialized term that appears primarily in meteorological reports and literary depictions of winter landscapes.
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