刺骨
cì gǔ · HSK 7
penetrating
🦴🥶 刺 stab + 骨 bone = cold that stabs your bones
cì means thorn or to pierce; gǔ means bone. Together they describe cold so severe it feels like it stabs right through to your skeleton. Think of winter wind that cuts through every layer and hits bone-deep.
刺 — thorn 朿 (phonetic) + knife 刂 (meaning)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The knife radical 刂 carries the meaning of cutting or piercing, while 朿 (a thorn) supplies both the sound and reinforces the idea of something sharp. Original sense was 'to stab' or 'pierce', later extended to 'thorn', 'sting', and figuratively 'to criticize sharply'.