The word 当年 is formed through the direct and conceptual combination of its two component characters: 当 (dāng), which carries the core idea of "being in or at" a specific point, and 年 (nián), meaning "year". The formation conceptually fuses these ideas to create the spatial-temporal notion of "that very year" or "the year in question", where 当 acts as a deictic pointer that situates and aligns the generalized concept of a "year" to a specific, contextually understood point in time.