The Chinese word 品牌 (pǐnpái), meaning "brand", is formed through a conceptual fusion of its two component characters. The first character, 品, originally depicted three vessels, conveying ideas of abundance, grade, and quality, and carries connotations of judging, tasting, or classifying something based on its standard. The second character, 牌, refers to a tablet, placard, or label, a physical marker used for identification or signage. Therefore, the compound 品牌 conceptually merges the intrinsic notion of graded quality or character (品) with the extrinsic notion of a public marker or label (牌), perfectly encapsulating the modern concept of a brand as a distinctive identity signifying a specific standard of quality.