The word 午夜 is formed through a conceptual blending of two time references: 午 (wǔ), which originally denotes the midday period or the noon hour, and 夜 (yè), which means night. By combining them, the term metaphorically extends the idea of "midpoint" (inherent in 午, as the center of the day) to the nighttime, thus creating the meaning "the middle of the night" or midnight. It is a direct and intuitive spatial-temporal metaphor where one character provides the "center" concept and the other provides the "night" realm.