You might remember the meaning of the character 凄 with this easy mnemonic:
The mournful group of people at the funeral were surprised when an ice (冫) sculpture that was ten (十) meters tall was delivered. It was a sculpture of a cat's snout (彐) with a woman (女) holding it.
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.