The word 俱乐部 (jùlèbù) for "club" is formed through a process of phonetic and semantic borrowing from Japanese (kurabu), which itself borrowed the English word "club". The Chinese characters were chosen primarily for their sound values to approximate the foreign term, 俱 (jù), 乐 (lè), and 部 (bù), while secondarily, their individual meanings ("all together", "joy", and "department") conveniently combine to suggest the social and recreational nature of such an organization. Thus, it is a creative transliteration where the sound guides the character selection, with the resulting compound also offering a fitting descriptive sense.