The word 岛屿 is formed by combining the character 岛, a pictograph historically representing land surrounded by water, meaning "island", with the character 屿, a semantic-phonetic compound where the radical 山 indicates its relation to land or mountain and the component 与 suggests its pronunciation, also meaning "island" or "islet". Together, they create a two-character word where both components contribute directly to the meaning of "island".