The word 国外 is formed through the direct, logical combination of its two constituent characters: 国 (guó), meaning "country" or "nation", and 外 (wài), meaning "outside" or "external". It is constructed conceptually by placing the idea of "outside" in relation to the idea of "country", thereby visually and notionally creating the meaning "outside the country" or "foreign lands". This formation follows a simple descriptive pattern where the second character modifies the first to denote a spatial or relational concept.