The compound word "临死" is formed through a grammatical construction where the verb "临" (lín), meaning "to face", "to approach", or "to be on the brink of", is combined with the noun "死" (sǐ), meaning "death", to create a verb-phrase meaning "to be facing death" or "to be on the point of dying". It functions as an adverbial phrase, often describing an action performed in the final moments before death (e.g., 临死前, "before death"). This structure is typical in Chinese, where a verb indicating a transitional state is placed before a key noun to denote the imminent occurrence of that noun's event.