The word "哀家" is formed by combining the character "哀", meaning sorrow or mourning, with "家", meaning family or household, where "哀" descriptively modifies "家" to refer to the royal household, resulting in a literal sense of "the sorrowful one of the family", which serves as a self-referential term used by empresses or royal consorts to convey humility, particularly in contexts of mourning or formal speech.