冷房
れいぼう · reibou · JLPT N4 · noun
air conditioning
❄️ 冷房 = cold + room: the thing that makes a room cold
冷 (rei) means cold and 房 (bou) means room or chamber. Its opposite is built the same way: 暖房 (danbou) = warm + room, heating. Learn the pair together and only the first character changes.
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.