The word 凡事 is formed through the combination of two characters: 凡 (fán), which originally means "ordinary" or "common", but in this context functions to mean "all" or "every", and 事 (shì), which means "matter", "affair", or "thing". When compounded, the literal meaning is "all matters" or "every affair". Over time, this has evolved into a fixed, abstract adverb meaning "in all cases", "whatever one does", or "generally speaking", used to introduce a piece of advice or a general principle that applies to any situation or circumstance one might encounter.