The word 恋人 is formed by combining two characters, each contributing a core idea to create a new, unified concept. The first character, 恋, carries the meaning of "love", "attachment", or "yearning". The second character, 人, simply means "person". When placed together, the two ideas merge directly: a "love-person" or a "person of love", naturally arriving at the meaning of "lover" or "sweetheart". It is a straightforward, ideographic pairing where the sum of the parts visually and conceptually equals the whole.