The word 巧克力 is a direct phonetic borrowing from the English word "chocolate". It is formed by selecting three Chinese characters whose modern pronunciations, when combined, approximate the sound of the foreign word: 巧 (qiǎo) for "cho", 克 (kè) for "co", and 力 (lì) for "late". The individual meanings of these characters (such as "skillful", "overcome", and "strength") are entirely unrelated to chocolate; they were chosen purely for their sound, following a common method in Chinese for creating new terms for imported concepts and objects.