The Chinese word 信条 (xìntiáo), meaning "creed" or "tenet," is a compound formed through semantic combination: the first character 信 (xìn) means "to believe" or "trust," establishing the concept of faith, while the second character 条 (tiáo) literally means "strip" or "item" but is used metaphorically here to denote a principle or article (as in an itemized list of beliefs). Thus, the term literally translates to "an item of belief," where the two characters together create a new, specific meaning referring to a systematically held set of guiding principles or doctrines.