Chinese usage makes clear that the original meaning of「in bed, sick rod, piece of wood, deathbed, bier」with「service provider (匕 so popular in dynastic China)」was DEFEATED, the LOSER, and COLD due to being dead or dying while laid out on a burial bier. Most carcasses soon become the ambient temperature as they LOSE HEAT. NORTH applies likely due only to being the coldest direction from central China. Today in Japan, almost all references of this glyph are to the north direction, and not to LOSER, although a few remain (such as 敗北, and as an element in 背, 乘, and 燕).
COLD may well also have referred to 'having cold feet' (originally, in 1605,「cold on my feet」to mean not ready to be moving) as a concubine with gangrene and loss of blood circulation in her lower extremities, LOST HEAT, someone waiting to die while lying in bed as septicemia courses its way through her remaining bloodstream.
Perhaps as referring to a soldier or other adult males, but not by losing a war: instead, by losing one's health, life status, family, savings and so on by spending too much time in repeated divine short-term rentals of「sitting persons」and taking home a dose and/or the pox, causing one's rod to congeal with hungry corkscrew demons and/or thick gleet and internal scar tissue, and so on.
These same elements can be seen in 氺. Either a「frozen rod」(no fluids can move) or a「sick in bed service provider」would likely be the opposite of hot, flaming in heat, that is to say COLD in bed, DEFIANT and BITTER at this run of bad luck, and being cursed by a witchdoctor, or so it was commonly believed.
Or, someone who LOST OUT of life by becoming a service provider, now sick「in bed with no-longer-integrated feet」and SEEKING REVENGE, noting that most dead people do not actually seek anything, including revenge, despite the indoctrination of some religions.
LOSER as the person who LOST A COMPETITION, possibly related to the glyph「comparison of concubine feet, two sitting persons」(比) after a selection has been made, except with the competitors now sitting back-to-back. The loser would not have a foot heated by a client, and both her feet would remain COLD, especially while blood circulation was diminished due to the tight bindings (see 複 that describes those who did not win). If so, left element represents the concubine who LOST THE CONTEST for beauty of no-longer-integrated and bound feet, now with her legs lowered, no longer under examination, and sitting in a「turned away」position as the one rejected, yet still feeling defiant and with a continuous, bitter cold attitude, likely clenching her teeth, crossing her arms as symptoms of both cold and rage as a result of being scorned, her injured pride with her back turned. All that behavior depicts NORTH, where it is「cold all the time, causing clenched teeth, folks cross their arms and stomp their feet while attempting to keep warm, turn their face away, with their back against the blasting winds.」
「Service provider sitting with a piece of wood」rather than a live client or the lord indicates the LOSER, the one not selected, who then tends to her own immediate needs with a wooden pestle. Indicates a FRIGID condition of a concubine, and perhaps some dildo use was prescribed as the road to recovery: see 乖, 解, 溶, and 融 as a few examples of the process involved.
Some have suggested these elements as two defeated soldiers, losers not wanting to be found and hiding behind a half-tree for cover, who later flee to cold places where others won't wish to follow…perhaps so, but usage as an element in other glyphs seems to negate that as the sole possibility.

External source definitions …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may include extended definitions, euphemisms, and mnemonics)
Chinese: north; to be defeated (classical)
Japanese EDRDG: north
Unihan extended: north; northern; northward

Used within names (nanori)
きら　･　ほう　･　ほっ　･　ほつ