About
凇 is a phono-semantic compound created to describe the meteorological phenomenon of rime, white ice crystals that form on tree branches and other exposed objects during freezing fog or damp, cold weather. The left side features the two-stroke ice radical 冫, indicating freezing temperatures, while the right side uses 松 as the phonetic component, which also evokes pine trees, the objects often covered by this type of ice. The character is highly specialized, appearing mainly in meteorological reports and literary descriptions of winter landscapes to precisely name this frosty atmospheric condition.