also: とうだい
privation; hardship from cold and hunger
Literary or classical term for suffering from cold and starvation; rarely used in modern everyday speech.
Ancient documents describe the plight of people suffering from cold and hunger.
Rare kanji compound; the reading とうだい is also attested but less common.
Alternate reading; とうたい is the more standard reading.
Compound of 凍 (freeze, cold) and 餒 (hunger, starvation). The exact historical derivation is uncertain; it appears in classical Chinese and was adopted into literary Japanese.