The word 太空 (tàikōng) is formed through a direct conceptual combination of its two constituent characters: 太 (tài), meaning "great" or "extreme", and 空 (kōng), meaning "sky", "emptiness", or "void". By merging these concepts, the term poetically constructs the meaning of "outer space" as the "great emptiness" or "extreme void", effectively capturing the vast, expansive, and seemingly empty nature of the cosmos beyond Earth's atmosphere.