零下
líng xià · HSK 2
below zero
🌡️❄️ 零下 = zero + below; temperature dropping under 0°
零 means zero and 下 means below or under. Together 零下 literally reads as below zero, the standard way to describe sub-zero temperatures in Chinese weather reports.
零 — rain 雨 + order 令 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 雨 (rain) gives the meaning and 令 supplies the sound. It originally meant scattered drops of falling rain, then extended to 'fragmentary, leftover bits,' and in modern Chinese came to mean 'zero.'
下 — horizontal line 一 + mark below
下 is an indicative character: a long horizontal line represents a reference level, and a shorter stroke placed beneath it points to the area below. The original meaning 'below, down' comes directly from this spatial diagram, and it later extended to verbs like 'descend' and 'lower'.