消息
しょうそく · shousoku · JLPT N1 · noun
news
📰✉️ 消 = fade away + 息 = breath or word: news is a word that travels from person to person
Classically 消息 meant change or the waxing and waning of things. 息 can also mean tidings or a word, so the sense shifted to news, letters, and circumstances.
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.