The bleak autumn wind and falling leaves were deeply saddening.
Tips
usage
凄 rarely stands alone in modern Chinese - it typically appears in compounds: 凄凉 (desolate), 凄惨 (miserable), 凄美 (poignantly beautiful). The variant 淒 is the traditional/alternate form.
Left ice radical - two short strokes, the side-form of 冰. It marks 凄 as belonging to the cold family and supplies the emotional temperature of the word: chilled to the bone, desolate, forlorn. Same family: 冷 cold, 冻 to freeze, 冰 ice, 凛 stern.
Right 妻 supplies the sound qī exactly. 妻 originally pictured a woman with a hand on her head - a married woman. The wife meaning is not carried into 凄; the phonetic is purely structural. Same kernel appears in 萋 lush grass and 戚 relative.
