冷漠
lěngmò · HSK 7
unconcerned
🧊🏜️ 冷 = cold + 漠 = desert; a person as warm as a cold desert = indifferent
冷 means cold and 漠 (water radical + 莫) means desert or vast emptiness. Pair them and you get an emotionally barren coldness: someone unconcerned and detached, treating others with a desert-flat lack of feeling.
冷 — ice radical 冫 + order 令
A semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 冫 (ice) supplies the meaning of coldness, while 令 (lìng, 'command/order') hints at the pronunciation. Originally referring to the chill of ice, 冷 broadened to mean cold in general, and figuratively cool, indifferent, or detached.