Where does the kanji for 凄い find it's roots?


Where does the kanji for 凄い come from? I don't know what any of the component
strokes mean, and it just looks really strange to me. Can I get an etymology
of the word? In Chinese I think it means something completely different...




凄 = 冫 + 妻

The radical 冫 is named にすい and it means "ice".

妻 means "wife".

凄 means "ice-cold", "bleak", "mournful", "frigid", etc., so it is a kanji with
highly negative meanings.

You stated that the kanji meant something completely different in Chinese but
it DOES NOT. Your statement appears to be based on a comparison between the
positive modern colloquial meaning of 「[凄]{すご}い」 in Japanese and the negative
original Chinese meaning of 「凄」, does it not? If so, it is not a fair
comparison.

凄い in Japanese was originally a very negative word, too. It meant "dreadful",
"unearthly", "grim", etc. You probably had the modern meaning "fantastic" in
mind, did you not?




凄 = 冫 + 妻

The radical 冫 is named にすい and it means "ice".

妻 means "wife".

凄 means "ice-cold", "bleak", "mournful", "frigid", etc., so it is a kanji with
highly negative meanings.

You stated that the kanji meant something completely different in Chinese but
it DOES NOT. Your statement appears to be based on a comparison between the
positive modern colloquial meaning of 「[凄]{すご}い」 in Japanese and the negative
original Chinese meaning of 「凄」, does it not? If so, it is not a fair
comparison.

凄い in Japanese was originally a very negative word, too. It meant "dreadful",
"unearthly", "grim", etc. You probably had the modern meaning "fantastic" in
mind, did you not?

