The word 哲学 (zhéxué, "philosophy") is formed through a conceptual and translational process. It is a two-character compound created in the 19th century by Japanese scholars using Chinese characters to translate the Western term "philosophy" (from Greek, meaning "love of wisdom"). The first character, 哲 (zhé), carries the ancient meaning of "wise" or "wisdom", and the second, 学 (xué), means "study" or "learning". Thus, the term was constructed to literally mean "the study of wisdom", directly mirroring the etymology of its Western counterpart, and was later adopted back into Chinese vocabulary with this modern meaning.