消費
しょうひ · shouhi · JLPT N3 · noun
consumption
🛒💴 消費 = extinguish (消) + spend (費): spending that uses things up
消 means to vanish or use up, as in 消す (to erase). 費 means cost or expense, as in 費用 (expenses). Together: money and goods spent until they are gone. Also in 消費税, the consumption tax added at every Japanese checkout.
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.