消息
xiāoxí · HSK 3
message
📨 消 (vanish) + 息 (breath/news) = news that travels
消 means to dissolve or dispatch; 息 originally meant breath, extended to news or tidings. Together: dispatched tidings — a message or piece of news. Same 息 appears in 信息 (information) and 休息 (rest, lit. stop-breath).
消 — water 氵 + 肖 (phonetic)
消 is a semantic-phonetic compound: the water radical 氵 indicates the meaning, while 肖 (xiào) supplies the sound. It originally described water dwindling or melting away, and from there extended to the modern senses of vanishing, dissolving, and dispelling.