The word 世间 (shìjiān) is a compound formed by combining two characters: 世 (shì), meaning "world", "generation", or "lifetime", and 间 (jiān), meaning "between", "among", or "space". Together, they create a concept that literally translates to "the space/interval within the world", but it functions as a single lexical unit meaning "the human world", "the mortal realm", or "society". This formation follows a common pattern in Chinese where a concrete noun (世) is modified by a locative or relational morpheme (间) to denote a specific, often abstract, domain or sphere of existence.