噌 is mainly the onomatopoeia "whoosh!" - typically in the pattern 噌的一声 / 噌的一下 to describe a rapid motion: someone darting off, a flame igniting, a bird taking flight. The "scold" sense is colloquial Northern speech.
memory
The 口 (mouth) radical signals a sound word. Read with first tone, 噌 appears in 噌吰, the resonant clang of bells, made famous by Su Shi.
Left mouth radical signals that 噌 is a sound-related character - an onomatopoeia or vocal noise. The mouth radical commonly indexes interjections and sound-effect words such as 吧, 啦, and 嗯.
Right 曾 supplies the sound - céng kept almost intact in 噌 (with a first-tone shift). The same phonetic appears in 增 (increase), 赠 (give), and 蹭 (scrape against).
